Why to invest in a BI software and how to choose one?

  • 31 October 2019
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Business intelligence is a way to reveal actionable insights from a massive influx of information. From understanding the “why” behind data from databases, emails, videos, survey responses and practically from anywhere to generate real-time reports and visualizing results, BI software helps you ask the questions to drive decision-making. Modern BI tools such as Tableau and Power BI has opened new doors for users to explore and arrive at impactful insights that they were initially missing.

In spite of all the benefits and promises of modern BI, some organizations are still hesitant to embark on the journey of BI. Sometimes, analytics is considered as the last piece in the modernization front, which can induce further challenges. So, the wise call is to have these self-service platforms in the first place. 

Build Trust in Your Data  

Data has become a ubiquitous asset. To harness it properly, organizations are deploying a proven, self-service analytics solution to make complex data easily understandable and make confident business decisions. These tools put the interpretative power in the hands of line of business leaders and enable you to confide in your business data. Precisely, business analytics tools help organizations to answer as “Why did this happen and what can happen next?” and much more like- 

  • Spot market trends in large datasets 
  • Ask the specific questions from the datasets  
  • Know how this trend evolved and why 
  • Forecast sales and profits
  • Analyze the results of marketing campaigns
  • Turn data analysis into visuals such as charts, graphs and more
  • Visualize potential opportunities and risks in real-time 
  • Predict success and discover issues much faster 
  • Display information that helps business users make decisions
  • Discover new insights from data like videos or social media platforms

As we know now how a BI tool can make data analysis faster, we can now turn our attention to choosing the best one out. Here are the top considerations to follow.

Self-Service BI tool 

Today’s many organizations are preferring the self-service BI tool over traditional systems. Look for a modern BI solution such as Tableau or Power BI, and reach high-level insights faster. You need not have to possess deep technical expertise to ask relevant questions and seek help from others. With self-service functionality, it becomes easier to gain faster insights at the drop of a hat. 

Considering various factors 

Evaluating business analytics doesn’t stop at finding the right software. You should also consider how it will be deployed, enabled, managed and supported to ensure maximum user adoption. 

Flexibility to deploy

Your BI platform should offer you the choice as to how you want it to be. Whether you want to deploy it in the cloud, on the local server. The BI software should integrate easily with the current business applications without disrupting your current business landscape. The flexibility is what you should look forward while choosing a BI platform.   

No hidden cost or surprises 

Do not simply base your decision just by seeing a demo or by its pricing. Perform a full comparison and know whether it is scalable to your business’s specific needs. When evaluating platforms, consider that the software does not have any hidden cost and have the total cost of ownership in the long run.   

User permissions and security 

Look for business analytics solutions that give you both user and user role-based security. This means you can easily designate and restrict powers to view, create, modify, publish and use the business intelligence software. This feature is required from a security standpoint.  

There are many other factors as well to consider such as in-memory analytics, ease of use, mobile version, real-time integration, intuitive visual analytics, auto data updates and other considerations. So, now as you know many of the considerations it is time to make a smart move towards an agile and future-ready organization that is empowered with real-time data. 

Diverse industries like retail, insurance, media, healthcare, education have adopted BI and more are joining each year. Uneecops can be your partner of choice to help you discover insights into customer behavior, forecast risks, and profits and more with enterprise-ready BI software such as Tableau and Microsoft BI. With clients like the World Health Organization, Mother Dairy, Piramal Group, Haier; you have all the reasons to confide in us. 

Nidhi Batra

About the author

Nidhi Batra is a marketing and brand communication professional with 10 years of experience working in the dynamic B2B marketing environment. She strategizes, writes, reviews a variety of content for demand generation and sales support activities. Having a Master’s in English from Delhi University, she knows how to navigate her readers on insightful journeys with her SAP published blogs and thought leadership content.