Why A Business intelligence Platform Makes Sense And How To Find The Right One
Business intelligence platforms enable staff to import, edit, and analyze structured and unstructured information from various sources. These analytics provide users, whether on mobile or desktop, with real-time insights into how their business is performing.
This knowledge enables decision-makers to take targeted actions to improve their company’s performance. Additionally, BI platforms offer the ability to create personalized dashboards, impressive data visualizations, and scorecards that can be compared with key performance indicators (KPIs). In order to keep up with technological progress, many companies also use consulting services in the area of business intelligence.
But what does a BI platform look like in practice, and what should you pay attention to when selecting it? These questions are answered in this article!
Table of Contents
What Is A Business Intelligence Platform?
Business intelligence tools or platforms are software solutions that enable the comprehensive collection and processing of data. They offer the opportunity to gain important insights, create customized reports and dashboards, and, therefore, make more informed decisions. These tools also generate automated reports and perform predictive analytics that make it possible to identify and understand future trends.
Why BI Platforms Are Important For Companies
In today’s dynamic business world, companies must become data-driven and create a data-centered culture. For such an approach, leaders need advanced business analytics tools that enable everyone in the company to interpret data clearly and easily.
However, these tools go beyond traditional business analytics packages. They aim to strengthen the company’s business analytics policy by simplifying the handling and interpretation of data. While basic analytics tools enable data collection, processing, analysis, and prediction, business analytics platforms are more robust and flexible, allowing them to adapt to changing business analytics goals.
BI Platforms In Practice
There are a variety of BI platforms on the market, both commercial and open source, offering different user experiences and functionality depending on the product. Not all platforms include all of the features listed below, but most offer at least some of them:
- Flexible Dashboards
- Graphical representation of the data
- Automated reporting with specific security requirements
- Data quality assurance and monitoring by IT teams
- Use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze content such as videos or social media
- Accelerated data exploration
- Performance evaluation through KPI comparisons.
How can these features be used in practice?
- Visualization of supply changes over time
- Sales and profit forecast
- Analysis of the results of marketing campaigns
- Automatic generation of reports
- Automatic distribution of messages to those responsible
- Sales and inventory visualization with real-time features
- Integration with third-party cloud-based platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure
- Embedding dashboards into common solutions for internal or external use
What Should You Consider When Choosing?
When choosing a BI platform, price or well-known brand names shouldn’t be the only consideration. What is particularly important is the scalability of the solution. Your business will grow, and the BI platform should be able to keep up with that growth. Another important point is the ability to integrate. The BI platform must be able to work smoothly with other systems in your IT landscape. Ease of use is also very important.
An intuitive system that non-technical people can use maximizes the return on investment (ROI) and promotes a data-driven corporate culture. Last but not least, safety aspects must be taken into account. At a time when data breaches are commonplace, your BI platform should have strong security mechanisms to protect your data and business information. Business intelligence is a complex field, but with the right platform at your side, you can manage the flood of information and set your business up for success.
Conclusion
Business intelligence platforms are essential in our digital world to efficiently use data from various sources and improve business decisions. They enable detailed insights, personalized dashboards, and predictive analytics to predict future trends.
When choosing such a platform, you should consider not only the price or brand name but also factors such as scalability, integration, ease of use, and security. Only with the right BI platform can companies be truly data-driven and achieve sustainable growth.
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