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Sigma is a cutting edge data analytics and BI platform that scales billions of records using spreadsheets, SQL, Python and AI – quickly and securely.
“Our focus has been on the market transforming data from premises infrastructure to cloud data warehousing,” says Mike Palmer, Sigma CEO.
The huge accumulation of data means it’s now becoming cheaper for businesses to store. Those who find value in Sigma are business users working with spreadsheets, who in the past extracted data from products like Tableau or Power BI in order to manipulate it themselves.
“The law of economics will tell you that if the price of storing data goes down, then the volume of data will go up – and that’s created opportunity,” notes Palmer.
Transforming the market with write back feature
Sigma’s main differentiating feature is the ability for users to “write back” to the warehouse. Most data products are read-only, so data that sits in the warehouse can only be visualized in charts or tables.
“Sigma is a company that originally started out as a next-generation analytics and BI product based on huge data growth, live query, better security – but has moved into augmenting historical data with forecasting end user input, workflow and application automation,” explains Palmer.
Data has shifted from causing problems to creating opportunities, and access to data has become key. “Sigma shines in a world where companies have pivoted from infrastructure mentalities to end-user enablement mentalities. We are the interface to give that end user, regardless of their skillset, the access they need to the data that will make them competitive,” he says.
“The underpinning force of change has been the migration of cloud.”
Mike Palmer, CEO, Sigma
The role of AI in data democratization
Many businesses are navigating the emergence of artificial intelligence and deciphering its impact. Will it complement or supersede the nature of people, processes and technology?
“In the history of the way we do business, and act as people, we adopt the next technology and add it on to our pre-existing behaviors. When we started to text, we didn’t stop making phone calls or hand typing emails. AI gives us a natural language interface, but it doesn’t mean we’re going to stop using spreadsheets, writing Python or doing SQL. It just gives us another choice,” explains Palmer.
AI is also helping democratize data. “We’ve always been invested in widening the population in terms of access to data – giving people the choice of interface to get work completed faster and smarter,” he says.
But with greater access to data comes greater concern over data privacy and security – so boosting customer confidence is key. “Sigma is one of the very rare tools that has enabled enterprises to increase security and governance while increasing access. From the beginning, we’ve been architected to never move data out of the warehouse, ensuring 100% consistency with established security structures.”
“AI isn’t the end state or the singular answer – it’s another tool in the toolbox.”
Mike Palmer, CEO, Sigma
Growth and success outlook
Being part of the knowledge- and tech-rich data analytics ecosystem enables Sigma to grow at high velocity, through organic product integration and strategic partnerships over acquisitions.
“The area customers are likely to get the best net new benefit from Sigma will be in the data applications space. The market shift in a post-cloud data warehouse world that we’re about to undergo is the consolidation of what is often 70+ different SaaS applications to less than 20 – which will help customers be more flexible, economic and competitive,” explains Palmer.
Sigma works closely with database providers. Palmer points out that these companies know databases are only valuable when people and applications use them. “A lot of our partner time is spent on creating an interface that provides more capability over time, for more people to take advantage of the data,” says Palmer.
Looking to the future, Sigma envisions the billion worldwide spreadsheet users moving into a true enterprise solution, while building significant application workflows in its platform. “I think we have a really strong vision around productivity, simplicity and automation for enterprises.”
Within a couple of years the business has achieved one of the fastest growth rates in the market (80%+) and may soon become a public company candidate. “The market will reward growth where it can find it. We were one of the many companies that emerged from the ZIRP era being able to position ourselves as a very fiscally responsible and efficient company that can also drive a significant top line growth rate,” concludes Palmer.
“We’re seeing the bifurcation of SaaS – companies are either making strategic acquisitions or deploying maximum capital to take market share.”
Mike Palmer, CEO, Sigma
