BI software (Business Intelligence software) gathers, analyzes, and visualizes data to provide actionable insights and support data-driven decision-making within an organization.
The value of information is difficult to overestimate when it comes to business processes. After all, any misunderstanding of information usually leads to errors, which in the case of a company can mean loss of profit or even reputation.
It is in order to avoid mistakes that the concept of BI or business intelligence appeared. This approach is designed to provide better and more accurate information to managers to make informed decisions.
The main task of BI is the analysis of current data, which can often be presented on a dashboard of quick metrics. Therefore, by implementing BI tools and software, a company can benefit from increased accuracy, timeliness, and volume of data.
In addition, BI allows you to have more ways to collect information, check data for errors, and structure data for broader analysis. Among the main challenges that organizations may face is that such data may be in different formats or poorly structured.
And, here, a BI software development company can solve these problems by providing businesses with effective business intelligence tools to optimize the information obtained from data. As a bonus, some BI solutions can save analytical time and increase the speed of reporting, thereby reducing the need to collect and reformat all the data.
Conceptually, BI software is designed to unify a company’s data and analytics, which helps make more effective decisions. Let’s take a closer look at what business intelligence is, as well as what its key features, types, and benefits are.
What Is Business Intelligence
Business intelligence or BI is software that is a procedural and technical infrastructure for collecting, storing, and analyzing data.
At the same time, when we talk about business intelligence, it should be understood that it is a broader term. Because BI also implies intelligent analysis of data and processes.
In addition, such solutions can provide performance benchmarking and analyze all data regarding business operations, thereby providing convenient and easy-to-read reports, performance indicators, and trends. All this is extremely valuable information for making informed decisions regarding company management.
Thus, BI is a perfect way to obtain all the necessary information about the company’s performance.
Key Features Of Business Intelligence
Here are some of the main features of business intelligence that make it a useful tool for any organization:
- Business intelligence provides infrastructure for collecting, storing, and analyzing data;
- Business intelligence analyzes information and produces reports to make data-driven decisions;
- Business intelligence allows companies to interact and use data more effectively;
- Business intelligence can use different data formats, being a universal tool for accurate information analysis;
- Business intelligence makes it easier for employers without technical background or experience to access and analyze data;
Types Of Business Intelligence
Business intelligence includes a set of various tools for obtaining and analyzing information from different sources and formats in order to be able to make more informed decisions. The most common types of business intelligence tools are:
Reporting & Querying. These types of tools allow you to extract data from different sources and create reports. Some of the most popular tools include Microsoft Power BI and Tableau.
Data Visualization. The purpose of these tools is to visualize data in the form of interactive charts, graphs, and visualization tools to make information easier and more accurate to understand.
Dashboarding. Tools of this type allow you to create interactive dashboards, thereby providing an overview of key indicators, which is valuable for assessing the company’s performance.
Data Mining. These tools are based on statistical and machine learning methods. This approach allows you to analyze large data sets faster and more accurately to extract valuable information.
ETL. These tools are also known as Extract, Transform, Load. Their task is to extract data from various sources and then convert it into the desired format. Also, these tools allow you to upload information in different formats to data storage.
OLAP. Online Analytical Processing tools help analyze data from different angles and points of view, which is especially valuable when making management decisions.
Collaboration. Collaboration tools enable different teams to work together on a project. With their help, the involved parties can seamlessly exchange information, draw up reports, etc.
Mobile tools. Business intelligence solutions for mobile platforms allow employees to access data and conveniently interact with it through a mobile application. Some of the most popular tools include MicroStrategy and IBM Cognos Mobile.
Predictive Analytics. This type of tool uses statistical methods and machine learning algorithms. The purpose of predictive tools is to analyze historical data to identify trends and create predictive models for the future. Popular tools of this type are SAS Predictive Analytics and IBM Watson Analytics.
Self-Service. Such tools are quite useful for companies, especially those with small staff, as they provide easy access and interaction with data for employees who do not have a technical background or experience.
Benefits Of Business Intelligence
The implementation of business intelligence software provides a number of competitive advantages to businesses, especially with regard to company management. Among the most valuable benefits that an organization can receive from using business intelligence tools are:
- Faster processes of collecting data from different sources;
- Ability to work effectively with data in different formats;
- Efficient and thorough analysis of large data sets;
- More accurate reports based on the information received;
- Improving data quality and minimizing errors;
- Reducing company costs for many processes;
- Non-technical employees can work with data;
- Increasing company revenue through process optimization and data-driven decisions;
Learn more about business intelligence software and implementing DevOps in financial institutions at Deepinspire.
