The ever-increasing flow of raw data has opened up a whole new world of opportunities for businesses to race ahead of their competitors.
They can now leverage Big Data to get vital information about their market, customers, employees, and competitors that can help them streamline their operations and provide better products/services. However, making sense of such large amounts of data is not every company’s cup of tea. Businesses that invest in the right Businesses Intelligence (BI) tools are the only ones that can successfully use all this data to their advantage.
So what exactly are BI tools and why are they so important for businesses today?
Business Intelligence is a process of analysing raw data and deriving relevant information from it to make smart and beneficial business decisions. And BI tools are programs, software, and applications that help identify, generate, analyse, and record this crucial data and make it more manageable and actionable.
However, it is not as simple as it seems.
Businesses cannot just pick any BI tool and expect it to work like magic. There are a plethora of BI tools available today, and choosing the right tool is critical for successful data analysis. Fortunately, there is one BI tool that has proven to be effective for the majority of large and small businesses that have invested in it - Microsoft’s Power BI.
What Is Power BI?
Power BI is an advanced Business Intelligence tool by Microsoft that helps businesses collect, analyse, visualise, share, and record data and transform it into actionable information. Despite its technical prowess, Power BI comes with a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for people to use it with minimal training. Plus, its smooth and intelligent integration with the Microsoft Office suite makes it a valuable and handy BI tool for business users with limited technical know-how.
Why Is Power BI the Smart Choice For Modern Businesses?
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Easy To Learn & Use
The first and most important reason to choose Power BI is its simple and easy-to-use interface. It is built on the foundation of Microsoft Excel which allows it to generate reports in the same style. Users need no technical training to analyse data using Power BI as its intelligent software can select the best reporting attributes based on your requirements. It uses Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database for data modelling which makes it quick and fairly straightforward to learn and use.
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Impressive Features
Another compelling reason why Power BI is most suitable for businesses is the availability of several impressive features. It has a huge library of powerful and interactive visualisations that can be customised as per the user’s preference and requirements. Power BI also comes with a dynamic data shaping tool called Query Editor and efficient data modelling tools based on SQL Database, which makes it quick and easy for users to generate detailed reports from vital data.
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Smooth Sharing & Collaboration
Power BI allows users to create interactive reports and dashboards which can be shared with co-workers in the workspace and even across mobile devices. It also comes with handy features such as exporting reports in the form of Powerpoint presentations which make it easy for workers to collaborate and derive actionable insights quickly and efficiently.
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Covers & Connects Many Other Data Sources
A major advantage of using Power BI is that it includes and connects dashboards of several other data sources such as Salesforce, Google Analytics, Microsoft Dynamics, Azure SQL Database, Microsoft Excel, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, IBM DB2 Database, MailChimp, Facebook, Amazon Redshift, and many more.
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Real-Time Updates
The Power BI dashboard updates data and visuals in real-time every time new data is streamed, enabling users to act quickly and gain a competitive advantage.
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Powerful Customisation
Power BI comes with many customisable options that allow users to customise navigation and security features as per their requirements.
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AI Integration
Lastly, Power BI allows users to integrate with powerful machine learning tools like Azure Machine Learning to create efficient modelling tools that can enable quick and easy data modelling.
Microsoft’s Power BI is a leading Business Intelligence (BI) tool that can help businesses process all the data more efficiently. Regardless of the size of your enterprise, it is a cost-effective and smart choice for analysing data and gaining valuable and actionable insights to make better business decisions.
Want to learn more about building value through data?
Visit FiguringOutData and find out how you can leverage data to grow your business.
