The Power of Data: A Guide to Business Intelligence (BI) Tools
Updated 18.4.2024
In this article, we’ll dive deep into the world of BI (Business Intelligence) and explore its critical role in business success. We’ll unveil the top BI tools to empower your data analysis, and provide valuable resources for further exploration. Get ready to transform your data into actionable insights!
1. Employee Communication and Business Decision making have gone Data-Driven
Business Intelligence has become an organizational competence.
It is a known fact that employee communication and business decision-making have gone data-driven. According to IDC by 2025 businesses will create and manage 60% of the world’s data.
That’s a lot of information… and a big opportunity at the same time.
With data and insights, companies can empower everyone to make better decisions to build a truly data-driven business. We integrate data in everything we do.
2. Business Intelligence Platforms
Dealing with Digital Transformation will require new skills, new tools, and a commitment to from the organization all the way to the top management. In this article, we will focus on the “tools” side of things, the Business intelligence platforms.
Business intelligence (BI) platforms provide capabilities in three categories:
1. Analysis, such as online analytical processing (OLAP)
2. Information delivery, such as reports and dashboards; and
3. Platform integration, such as BI metadata management and a development environment.”
Gartner, Inc
Companies use Business Intelligence services to transform data into visuals, to analyze data, and share dashboards with insights to drive action.
Global Research on BI Tools
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms
Gartner, a global research and advisory firm, evaluates the Business Intelligence Platforms based on the Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. The quadrant for the year 2020 looks like this. (see image)
We are covering the top BI tools below – keep reading to learn more ⬇️
3. Top Business Intelligence Tools
Microsoft Power BI
- Power BI is Microsoft’s business analytics service that delivers insights to enable fast, informed decisions.
- Microsoft Power BI offers a few subscriptions to choose from Power BI, Power Pro, or Power BI Medium.
- Microsoft Power BI is in the “Leaders” category in the Gartner Magic Quadrant
- Blogs to follow regarding Microsoft Power BI: Power BI Blog by Microsoft and our definite favorite – YouTube video channel Guy in the Cube (cheers Adam and Patrick)
Tableau
- Tableau is “changing the way you think about data”.
- Tableau comes with various products to choose from. You can deploy Tableau as a server or fully hosted cloud.
- Tableau is in the “Leaders” category in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
- Blogs to follow around Tableau: Tableau Blog and Biztory
Qlik
- Qlik is a suite of various intelligence products.
- Qlik Sense is a modern data analytics platform. The one-of-a-kind analytics engine and AI empowers any user to find hidden insights query-based BI tools
- QlikView is a business discovery platform that provides self-service BI for all business users in organizations.
- Qlik is in the “Leaders” category in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
- Blogs to follow around Qlik; Data Anlytics, Data Integration and Data Literacy blog by Qlik and Qlikview Cook Book (already since 2008!)
Your Qlik reports screenshots on digital displays around the workplace
Share your insights using Valotalive
ThoughtSpot
- ThoughtSpot is unleashing the value of your cloud data with search & AI-Driven Analytics
- ThoughtSpot is a business intelligence and big data analytics platform that helps you explore, analyze, and share real-time business analytics data easily.
- ThoughtSpot in the “Leaders” category in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
- Blogs to follow around ThoughSpot; The ThoughtSpot Blog by ThoughtSpot, Spotrics Blog by Spotrics
TIBCO
- TIBCO makes it possible to unlock the potential of your real-time data for making faster, smarter decisions.
- TIBCO provides a suite of tools for connected intelligence – Connect, Unify, and Predict
- TIBCO is in the “Challengers” category in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms
- Blogs to read around TIBCO; TIBCO blog by TIBCO
Further Reading you might find interesting:
How to display Power BI reports on company TV (digital signage)
How to display Qlik Sense dashboards on company TV (digital signage)
