Something was bound to change atop industry darling and data-visualization vendor Tableau following a stark earnings report and plummeting stock price this year. On Monday that something happened, as co-founder and original CEO Christian Chabot stepped down and handed the chair to former Amazon Web Services executive Adam Selipsky.
Chabot will serve as chairman of Tableau's board, and Selipsky is set to become CEO effective September 16, the company said in a statement:
Adam Selipsky has spent over a decade building Amazon Web Services, one of the most successful technology platforms in the world. His leadership helped grow AWS from a start-up into a multi-billion dollar business and establish it as the undisputed market leader in cloud computing. Selipsky currently serves as Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Support for AWS.
Christian Chabot will remain actively involved in the company as chairman of the board of directors. He will continue to assist the company with long-term strategy and customer evangelism. Chabot served as Tableau’s CEO for 14 years and helped grow the company into a technology pioneer with over 46,000 customer accounts.
Tableau is making a number of other executive changes, including the promotion of Francois Ajenstat to chief product officer.
Selipsky's arrival as CEO comes at a time when AWS has become a go-to cloud infrastructure and development provider for large enterprises. His relationships with marquee AWS customers such as General Electric, who have made the company a centerpiece of their IT strategies, should help Tableau win more large deals.
Still, Selipsky will find himself with a considerable challenge as he tries to take Tableau to the next level of growth. The very qualities that helped the company stand apart from the pack for so long are no longer enough in the current competitive environment.
"Tableau had a good, long run from late in the last decade through 2015 leading growth and refocusing the entire business intelligence category on self-service analysis and data visualization," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Doug Henschen. But over the last couple of years, as the focus for many companies has turned to cloud computing—and, thus, data analysis in the cloud—Tableau has encountered stepped-up competition, Henschen adds.
These competitors include Microsoft with PowerBI, as well as new cloud services such as IBM Watson Analytics, Domo and Looker. It also faces stiffer competition from long-time rivals like Qlik, Oracle and others that have stepped up their data-visualization capabilities, Henschen says. Thus it's no surprise Tableau stumbled in recent quarters.
The choice of Selipsky as CEO "underscores that Tableau’s future depends on an effective cloud strategy," Henschen says. Just last year, Amazon announced QuickSight, a low-cost data-analysis and data-visualization service that will soon become generally available. Google, too, has introduced a cloud-based reporting and data visualization suite in Google Data Studio.
"The big cloud purveyors are also amassing AI-oriented portfolios combining search, machine learning, and text, voice and image recognition services that promise to redefine expectation for data-driven apps," Henschen adds. "The challenge for Tableau and Selipsky will be accelerating the move into the cloud with Tableau Online while better differentiating its capabilities versus its numerous and increasingly aggressive competitors."
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