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Introduction to Business Intelligence
In this new era of business, entrepreneurs are prioritizing smart work over hard work. And, this is what helps them to establish a successful enterprise.
But,
All the businesspersons follow a different approach to accomplish their strategic business goals.
What makes them common is the use of actionable insights and making data-driven decisions.
Note that taking decisions faster and accurately has become the need of the hour to thrive in the modern competitive environment.
This is when business intelligence plays a vital role.
It involves a group of processes, skills, technologies, and applications to make the right decisions.
The set of methods used in business intelligence includes:
- Collection
- Aggregation
- Analysis
- Meaningful presentation of data
Organizations that take decisions based on data use business intelligence tools for making predictions, preparing reports, and so on.
In this article, We are going to discuss about business intelligence along with the top 7 tools that you can leverage in your business (that actually WORKED).
What is Business intelligence Software?
Business Intelligence Software refers to the set of tools specially designed for extracting, analyzing, transforming, and presenting complex data into a readable report for insights.
Organizations use business intelligence (BI) tools for achieving strategic goals using big data and cloud computing.
Nowadays, the tools are available in standalone applications or as a part of ERP, CRM, etc.
In addition, it is easy to use them today.
Why your organization should use BI tools?
According to Forbes, 54% of enterprises admitted that cloud-based BI tools were helpful in their present and future initiatives.
Also, a lot of businesses adopted BI tools in 2020 for improving their decision-making process.
It means the firms have started understanding its importance.
If your business is not using any business intelligence tools, it’s the right time to do so.
Benefits of Business Intelligence Tool
- A business intelligence tool can assist your company in figuring out sales and lead generation opportunities and growth areas.
- BI tools make the right information available to you so you can easily deal with urgent crisis issues in the company.
- You can get a bird’s eye view of the relevant data in your company that comprises the overall performance of the company.
- Do you want to predict what can go right or wrong in the future in your company? Then, business intelligence software is all you need.
Best Business Intelligence Tools
1) Sisense
Sisense is a brilliant BI software that facilitates business decisions in your organization.
This end-to-end proprietary tool is primarily made for companies lacking basic expertise in business intelligence.
It’s a simple to use BI solution for small and well-established businesses too.
The platform uses ElastiCube as its analytics database. It has been built with in-chip technology, which works faster than memory databases.
What impresses us about Sisense is its capability to use the blend of live and cached data models.
It helps in optimizing the performance and handling resource utilization with ease.
Features
- Offers all-in-one solution for consolidation, organization, preparation, and analysis of data
- Combine charts from plenty of sources after identifying them without any action of the user
- Your company doesn’t have to hire professionals for analyzing data
- Eradicate the need for investing in data warehouses and their maintenance
Pricing: Based on annual fees model
2) Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is a leader in the business intelligence field.
It offers data analysis, visualization, preparation, augmented analytics services, and so on.
This is the only Business Intelligence Software Free that we admire a lot.
The three main elements of this tool are dataset, dashboard, and report, which make it the best choice for businesses.
Being a user, you are allowed to analyze and visualize data from on premise and cloud platforms.
With its pro version, you can enjoy seamless collaborative analysis free of cost with Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint, and Teams.
This way, you can gain access to data and reports.
Features
- Signing up and using Microsoft Power BI is pretty easy
- You can view all the key metrics irrespective of in what format they are present
- Assist in finding out when your business requires attention
- Provide real-time dashboards to allow you to view all the datasets
- Capable to integrate with other Microsoft software
Pricing: $0-$9.99/month
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3) Zoho Analytics
We have already used Zoho Analytics for our business. It’s an amazing self-service business intelligence tool, analytic software, and online reporting platform.
The users can generate insightful dashboards, study trends, track business performance, and visualize data.
It collects data from plenty of sources and truly, it’s a scalable tool for business owners.
This tool makes the processing of data easier, no matter what complex it looks.
Being AI-powered, users are allowed to ask questions and receive meaningful answers.
Features
- You get customizable dashboards and reports
- 100+ integration options with business applications, cloud drives, etc.
- Intuitive drag and drop interface
- Contains pre-built analytical function
- Makes your business prepare for future events with smart prediction
- Augmented Analytics using an AI and ML Powered Intelligent Assistant
- Available for use as on-premise and cloud-version and you can deploy it on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and so on
Pricing: $0-$445/month based on various plans
4) QlikView
Qlikview is packed with enormous business intelligence feature that permits you to extract all the hidden insights from data.
Known as one of the best BI reporting tools, it holds the trust of many organizations like Cisco, KitchenAid, and so on.
You can make productive use of raw data into useful results using end-to-end multi-cloud data integration and analytics solution.
Do you know what makes this business intelligence tool special?
It boasts a data literacy program, AI, and machine learning capabilities. All these are possible only because of the Qlikview cognitive engine.
Features
- Quick drag and drop interface that smoothens interactive creation of visualization
- Offering compatibility to multiple data source and file types
- Allows advance data preparation with broad data connectivity
- Freeform Associative Exploration analyses data in a short time
- Provides relevant results after analysis
Pricing: $0-$100/month
5) Tableau
If all the above software seems of higher cost, make an economical choice with Tableau.
It is well known as the industry leader when it comes to providing BI solutions.
The software contains easy to use reporting feature.
Besides, the software lets you pick data from a variety of sources and not only from Excel, SQL, or oracle.
Apart from easing data visualization, collaboration, and sharing, you can do a lot more with Tableau.
It has everything that you want in a business analytics and intelligence software.
Features
- Create an array of visualization as a bar chart, pie chart, histogram, bullet chart, motion chart, Gantt chart, and much more
- Dynamic back end and front end permit forecasting and decision-making process easier
- Supply endless relevant answers with its natural search feature. You have to type a query and get the required results instantly
- Tableau comes with a tight security system and row-level filtering for keeping data secure
Pricing: $12-$70/month
6) Birst
Birst is another cloud-based business intelligence tool that impresses with its in-model data memory design and extensive range of capabilities.
It provides all the necessary set of features that a frontline business leader seeks in a business intelligence system.
You can explore several insights without any need for analysis input.
This connects the whole enterprise using a network analytics approach.
Moreover, it has empowered them to take decisions faster.
Also,
Thanks to its automatic data integration facility for reducing manual tasks.
Features
- Automatic data refinement through which you can data can be merged together
- Delivers real-time access without extraction of data and uploading to the cloud
- Studies data patterns with smart analytics
- Available in the form of mobile application
- Interactive dashboard and 24×7 active support team
Pricing: Not revealed yet
7) MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy business intelligence tool is best in enterprise analytics for individuals, teams, and enterprises.
It is changing the way business takes complex decisions that involve higher risk.
You can use it in retail, finance, healthcare, government, manufacturing, and many industries.
If you wish to create customized data visualization, use a real-time dashboard, etc. MicroStrategy can assist.
To understand how it works, you can go for its free trial and access many features right on some clicks.
Features
- Saves your extra cost for infrastructure being a cloud-based platform
- Providing advanced and predictive analysis features
- Gain access to the database directly with in-memory
- Quite easy to get familiar with its most of the features
- Trustworthy for solving big data-related problems
Pricing: By request
Conclusion
There are plenty of business intelligence tools, but in this blog we have tried to aggregate the best of them.
In the above list, We enjoyed exploring Sisense and QlikView. These two gave me the result that we were looking for.
Along with these tools, You can also use SEMrush, for online visibility management service. (Highly recommended).