Business Intelligence (BI) Tools & Software Compared

Business Intelligence Tools – Essential Additional Information on Our BI Tools Comparison

More and more companies are recognising the importance of data and the significant relevance of properly evaluating this data for their operations. In this context, business intelligence tools are very useful. They help to understand trends, gain key insights from data and ultimately incorporate these strategically advantageous into their own decisions. Business intelligence tools support companies in organising data – from analysis and summarisation to reporting and ongoing monitoring. The general goal is to be able to act based on data.

These are Popular Business Intelligence Tools:

• Tableau

• Microsoft Power BI

• Apteco

• Minubo

• SAP BusinessObjects BI

• Looker

• Google Cloud Datalab

• IBM Cognos Analytics

• y42

Advantages of Business Intelligence Tools at a Glance:

• Easy visualization and understanding of business data

• Consolidation of all company data sources in one place and thus the possibility to establish cross-departmental connections

• Promotion of data-driven decision-making for business optimization

• Gaining new, substantiated insights, which would not be possible without such data organization

Who Needs Business Intelligence Tools?

The business-specific use of data is often quickly assigned to marketing and sales. However, many other positions in a company can benefit from good and centrally accessible information. Extensive, complex business intelligence software is in use by specialised data analysts and data scientists. However, there are also BI programs which are designed for the average end-user, or those that are tailored to the needs of small, medium or large businesses. The market also provides point solutions, i.e., those which grant data analysis and processing in certain departments. Often, cross-over BI programs are the better choice. These tools have the same functionality on a much broader level and result in the individual business departments working together more closely. Of course, the latter can offer far more advantages than the work with data itself. The following departments benefit especially from business intelligence tools.

Sales

Sales employees can use business intelligence tools to better understand prospects and customers and gain insights into sales performance. These tools are particularly useful for sales managers and other supervisors as they provide the means to monitor the performance of each employee and get a clear picture of the sales process, optimizing it if necessary. Furthermore, with data visualizations, sales teams can transparently present and follow various goals, which enables them to work very economically. Since business intelligence tools can be used cross-departmentally, the entire company can gain insights into sales figures and other important sales factors, further improving processes accordingly.

Marketing

Marketing deals with various campaigns on a daily basis. BI tools provide an excellent opportunity for teams to track the performance of these activities in one central location. Data visualization allows for specific processes to be analysed in real-time or over longer periods. By measuring the performance of individual efforts, teams can plan for future campaigns and predict how much revenue may be attributed to them. Business intelligence tools, among other things, allow for target group formation based on demographic data and other information. Thus, marketing increasingly gets to know the circle of people to which its activities are directed. The result is highly targeted campaigns. Similarly to use cases in sales, marketing teams can use BI programs to increase transparency and make their work overall more efficient.

Finance

Finance teams generally use specific tools for budgeting and financial forecasting. However, merging financial data with sales, marketing and other operational information can yield additional very advantageous insights. For example, with business intelligence tools, necessary budgets for individual marketing activities can be better assessed before consulting with the department, making operations more economical. In general, accounting can quickly determine the right and wrong places to spend money. It is very advantageous for finance that business intelligence tools not only provide insights into the data of individual departments, like accounting software or sales management does, for example, but also provide useful insights into how all other business factors affect profit and loss.

Operations and Supply Chain

A potential data source for BI solutions is the enterprise resource planning system (ERP). These applications track everything - from accounting and supply chain to sales. By entering supply chain data into BI programs, supply chain managers have the opportunity to evolve many typical processes to save time and resources. For example, businesses can optimize their inventory and ensure that they do not over or underproduce. BI tools also help to create ideal distribution routes and ensure that service level agreements (SLAs) are met. Through all these and further processes, which can be initiated with business intelligence tools in the area of operations and supply chain, businesses stay on course and achieve higher company-wide goals very precisely

What Types of Business Intelligence Software Exist?

There are actually different types or technical orientations of business intelligence software. You can find the best solutions in our BI tools comparison. While the functionality of the variants often overlaps, they are ultimately aimed at different users or offer some special services.

Business Intelligence Software

The most common type includes business intelligence software. Such programs are comprehensive analysis tools, the maximally purposeful use of which usually requires a certain degree of experience with data issues. The solutions connect to databases, data warehouses and/or big data distributors and offer analysts the opportunity to experiment with data in a variety of ways and thus gain very detailed insights. Some BI programs offer advanced analysis functions, such as predictive analyses, analyses of large amounts of data, and the ability to include unstructured data. In addition, such software sometimes offers self-service functions, so that even less experienced users can utilize the tools. Fundamentally, such business intelligence software is, however, aimed at specialists.

Self-Service Business Intelligence Software

For businesses that want to transition to data-driven processes, a self-service business intelligence tool is often the right choice. Here, no deeper knowledge in the fields of data processing or data analysis is needed - nor is programming knowledge. Therefore, such BI programs are usable by practically anyone. These solutions often offer drag-and-drop functions for creating dashboards, predefined templates for data queries, and sometimes even queries for data retrieval in natural language. In addition to data newcomers, self-service programs are generally the best solution when companies do not want to or cannot hire data specialists. With the help of the tools, sales employees, HR managers, marketing members and other non-data specialists can make data-driven decisions.

Embedded Business Intelligence Tools

Some software offers the option to embed analysis functions in other business applications. Often, this is the same providers that sell BI tools or self-service business intelligence software. More often than not, it is very beneficial to make such an embedding, as employees can then proceed with familiar software, which is expanded by appropriate functionality. This automatically increases the chance that employees will actually use the available data. This type of business intelligence tool can typically also be used by the average end-user.

Data Visualization Software

Sometimes a straightforward solution for representing key performance indicators (KPIs) and other important metrics is needed. Here, data visualization software can be used. With such solutions, users have the opportunity to create dashboards relatively easily to track company goals and metrics in real-time. These tools do not, however, offer the opportunity to elaborate on the data. Multiple dashboards with KPIs can typically be created so that each team can set up visualizations for its own goals. Like the previously mentioned variants, these tools offer the ability to use data from a wide variety of sources.

Location Intelligence Software

Location intelligence software is a subgroup of business intelligence tools. These programs provide insights based on map and spatial data. With such tools, users can determine relationships between locations. In the same way, it is possible to find patterns in financial or sales data with a business intelligence software, ideal locations for opening new branches can be found using location intelligence tools. Such tools are sometimes sold separately from business intelligence tools, but they can certainly be combined with these and other analysis tools.