5 Tips for Choosing the Right BI Tool

In today’s world, businesses are the greatest consumers and the producers of data in the world. There will be 175 zettabytes of data in the global datasphere by 2025, an increase of almost 200% from the amount of data being collected today. However unstructured data repository is an issue for almost 95% of enterprises as per Forbes. Business Intelligence is the discipline of IT that allows the raw data in the data warehouses of the company to be utilized for practical purposes by the respective business leaders. Given how important BI is for today’s businesses it needs to be treated as a strategic and long-term investment decision. 

In this article, we will cover the top 5 tips for business leaders to choose the perfect BI tool for their enterprise.

5 Actionable Tips for Choosing the Right BI Tool

Technological Compatibility 

Does the tool connect seamlessly to the existing databases of the organization or would it require a large data integration project to be undertaken before that becomes a reality? It’s best to move on and find something that works out of the box. Any data, irrespective of its recency, is critical. It is important to choose a Business Intelligence software where old and new data in the company can be used to generate insights. For example, neither Looker nor Google Data Studio supports JDBC or ODBC, which can be a limiting factor for using legacy technology in case your company data resides in those. On the other hand, Microsoft’s Power BI can tap into any data by easily pulling in data from any data source for some quick analysis.

User Experience | Developer Experience 

Providing developers within the enterprise with BI tools that have a familiar user experience with respect to the tools they already use, helps ease the transition as it is more relatable and drives adaptability. If most of the end-users in your company are Excel users, selecting a tool like Microsoft PowerBI will have a far greater chance of success because PowerBI is very similar to Excel, and is better suited for analytics. Tableau is also a Self-Service BI tool that allows users to create and share compelling reports & interactive dashboards on their own in a matter of minutes. It can also easily find, monitor, explore and share actionable data insights.

Reporting and Visualization Capabilities 

It is advisable to invest in BI tools that have proper reporting, out-of-the-box analytics, and visualization in place. It is critical that enterprises choose the right tool that allows users to run specific analytics and produce customized reports. Another important aspect is that the tool needs to have features for collaborative functionality which can help cross-functional teams to build and share charts and dashboards across teams. It should allow for interactive visualization for all stakeholders. A tool like Tableau allows users to create beautiful and insightful reports and dashboards with a simple drag-and-drop interface. The powerful visualizations enable users to unleash relevant business insights.

Mobile Friendly

In today’s world, most content or information is consumed on mobile devices and business information is not going to be any different. Choosing a BI tool that offers mobile-friendly visualization, dashboarding, and reporting is critical. This might not be a deal-breaker but it definitely stands out as one important factor to consider when selecting a BI tool. Having business information at their fingertips might mean an extra time advantage for business leaders. An added value add can be notification and messaging as a part of the suite might be helpful to make sure that critical information is handed over to the business leaders in real-time. For instance, Microsoft’s Power BI and Tableau software allow enterprises to get a single view of their most critical business data on the go with touch-enabled native apps for Windows, iOS, and Android.

Pricing

This is in all possibility the most important question we need to answer while deciding on the tool that we buy, does the cost justify the benefits. It is always tempting to go for a tool that has a large number of features. The question is whether the enterprise needs a full-fledged BI tool or something that is good enough at this point but can scale as the business grows.

A large repository of data is of no use if companies are not able to derive the right insights from it. The right business intelligence software can help enterprises analyze, enhance and visualize data and drive actionable insight that drives business decisions and innovation. 

So, if you are looking for the best business intelligence software companies then Uneecops is your premium partner of choice for Tableau with eminent clients and successful history in rendering exact business intelligence solutions.