Business Intelligence is a set of tools and architectures which helps in analyzing the business data to present actionable information to the executives of a company and contribute to decision making.
The Business Intelligence industry is rapidly growing from the past two decades and rightfully so. The BI tools have proven to be the most crucial elements since they use KPIs and other metrics to convert the raw data into useful information.
How is Business Intelligence useful in an organization?
- Analyzing current and previous organizational data obtained from internal and external data sources plays the most vital role in decision-making. To support that, Business Intelligence is usually introduced in an organization to integrate the data from different departments.
- Many events may occur in an organization which lead to critical circumstances. Business Intelligence deters the event pattern based on the data collected and analyzed before drawing a proper solution.
- A successful business always tends to work efficiently within the organization. Using Business Intelligence in the organization will also solve that problem by improving the accuracy of the data shared.
- Customers of your organization may sometimes show interest in your product and sometimes not. Business Intelligence also tracks the customer behavior and helps develop products to match the current trends.
- An organizational management may not have clear insights on every department. They might accidentally ignore some flaws, and the best performed departments. Investing on a good Business Intelligence system may help overcome this problem.
- Studying historical data of the company might serve as the rectification of previous faults, for current processes. Business Intelligence also functions with benchmarking to invoke best practices in the organization.
Business Intelligence, on a whole, deals with predictive and prescriptive analytics, complex event processing, business performance management and benchmarking.
There are many growing software companies working on and producing BI applications in order to help companies in need.
Top 5 Business Intelligence Software
Microsoft Power BI:
Power BI is the business intelligence and analytics software developed by Microsoft. It is a collection of software services that can convert your raw data to visually effective one.
Features:
1) Sharing datasets, reports and dashboards is possible through content packs.
2) Custom visuals
3) Trusted third party connectors
4) Paginated Reports
5) Dynamic format strings and MDX queries on CTP 3.0
Pros:
1) User friendly.
2) Affordable price.
3) Free version is available.
Cons:
1) Doesn’t perform advanced analytics
2) Not made for predictive modeling
Tableau Software:
Tableau is the fastest growing interactive data visualization software which contributes majorly to Business Intelligence. The data visualizations are generally in the form of worksheets and dashboards.
Features:
1) Natural Q&A
2) Checks trends with drag and drop option
3) Publish necessary data online to share with the organization or you can use private server.
4) Highlight and filter data.
Pros:
1) Easily combines data from multiple sources
2) Connect to whichever data you need
3) Can access Data Warehouses
4) Can be used from any platform – desktop, mobile or tablets
5) High Performance
Cons:
1) Highly expensive
2) Needs IT expertise
3) Questionable security
TIBCO Software
TIBCO is another Business Intelligence software that masters in data integration and analysis. It is a cloud-based company that quickens the decision-making process.
Features:
1) Integration and API management
2) Messaging and event processing
3) Process management
4) Data integration
5) Advanced analytics.
Pros:
1) User friendly
2) Dynamic dashboards
3) High visualization
4) Used through various platforms
Cons:
1) Need SQL knowledge
2) Expensive
GoodData
GoodData is an American-based Business Intelligence software. It provides open analytics platform associated with IT working in the backend.
Features:
1) Online Analytical processing
2) Customizable dashboards created by users
3) Predictive Analysis
4) Ad Hoc Analysis
5) Trend Indicators
Pros:
1) Advanced Analytics available.
2) Easy to use
3) One tool for multiple uses
4) Good security
Cons:
1) Expensive
2) Data exporting options are limited
3) No on-premise version
Logi Analytics
Logi Analytics is computer software company located in Virginia, United States. It offers data visualization and business analytics for business intelligence.
Features:
1) Low-code development
2) Interactive Dashboards
3) Theme Library
4) Workflow Management
5) Data blending
Pros:
1) Connected data sources
2) Good security
3) Effective Visualization
4) Code-level customization
Cons:
1) Complex
2) Users must be trained
Limitations of Business Intelligence
These are very few among the sea of products in Business Intelligence. It is one of the continuously blooming technologies in world’s market. But as they say, everything in this world is not all sunshine and rainbows; Some of the prominent flaws measured in BI are:
- Multiple points of truth: Everyone draws different conclusions from a single source. It can be chaotic to understand, sometimes.
- Cost: It can be too expensive sometimes for small and medium sized companies.
- Complexity: Business intelligence can be too complex to deal with. The detailed design can be a little hard to understand.
- Needs training to use: Knowledgeable personnel to manage analysis through BI.
