Navigating the nuances of any business market can be daunting, given the unique nature of each market sector, complete with its unique challenges and complexities. Every customer base is diverse, with clearly outlined budgets, plans, and strategies. As a result, businesses employ a range of marketing and selling techniques to cater to various products and services.
Within any business, systems generate a massive amount of data, running into terabytes, petabytes, or sometimes, exabytes. Businesses analyze this data to create actionable decisions, a process known as Business Intelligence (BI). Clearly, a company’s success is pegged on decisions made from the insights garnered from business intelligence.
Business Intelligence is an ever-evolving technology, making waves across different business sectors worldwide. BI services have proven to be successful in delivering personalized experiences to customers. These services are diverse, and businesses are tapping into the potential of this technology. One such example is Power BI, a tool that aids in making complex business decisions.
Why Choose Power BI?
Power BI is a cloud-based Business Intelligence service offered by Microsoft. This service derives its strength from Microsoft’s years of experience in relational databases such as Access, SQL server, etc. Power BI is a business intelligence platform that supports businesses in cleaning and transforming data into meaningful insights. It provides a comprehensive analysis of data and shares these powerful insights with stakeholders.
As per the 2018 edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms, Microsoft is positioned in the leaders’ quadrant, making it a key player in the market. Power BI is considered a go-to platform based on its comprehensive vision and ability to execute BI solutions.
Here are the top 6 reasons why Power BI stands out as the best BI Platform in the market.
1. User-Friendly Interface
Power BI comes with a simple and straightforward interface. Users don’t need programming experience to use Power BI. Its inbuilt intelligence automatically suggests the best reporting element for your selected attributes.
2. Simple Learning Curve
Power BI is built on the foundation of Excel, following a similar approach to report design. Given the global acceptance and widespread use of Excel, learning Power BI becomes easy.
3. Collaboration Made Easy
Power BI supports collaborative workspaces where users can team up to craft interactive reports and dashboards. Reports and dashboards can be published to wider audiences, shared with a small group, or even exported as PowerPoint presentations.
4. Cost-Effective Solution
Power BI desktop is free, allowing users to create simple and complex reports and dashboards. The pro licenses of Power BI come at an affordable rate, and there’s a premium option for larger audiences, allowing cost customization based on audience usage.
5. Wide Data Source Compatibility
Power BI supports a broad range of data source connectors, including Microsoft Excel, SQL Server database, MySQL database, Oracle database, IBM DB2 database, IBM Netezza, IBM Informix, PostgreSQL database, Sybase database, SAP Hana, Amazon Redshift, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data warehouse, Azure Analysis services database, Azure Blob Storage, MailChimp, Facebook, GitHub, Salesforce, and many more.
Despite the presence of competitors like ZOHO Reports, IBM Watson Analytics, Sisense, and Google Analytics, Power BI stands tall, primarily due to its ease of use and the readily available Microsoft Help for the tool.
