Top 3 Business Intelligence Tools to Display Corporate Analytics

Modern businesses are operating in the age of analytics, where corporate decisions are increasingly based on vast amounts of data. Currently, 63% of organizations confirm that adopting business analytics and big data gives them a competitive advantage. However, many companies struggle to analyze large volumes of data from multiple sources.

Fortunately, business intelligence tools streamline the process of retrieving, analyzing, and reporting data to drive critical business decisions. BI tools perform various functions, such as data mining, data modeling, smart data visualization, and reporting. These tools include Qlik, MicroStrategy, SAS Business Intelligence, Yellowfin BI, Zoho Analytics, Sisense, Oracle BI, Looker, Domo, IBM Cognos, and Sap Business Objects.

Business Intelligence and Digital Signage

Employees on all levels need instant access to company data to do their jobs effectively. Traditionally, business analytics were shared in senior management meetings to inform organizational goals. Today, only 16% of enterprises provide access to analytics for at least 75% of staff.

The modern business environment is fast-paced, and employees need real-time access to company data to make better decisions, serve customers better, and feel like a team. As a result, Digital signage has emerged as an excellent medium to increase data transparency as it reaches all employees across any organization.  

The technology works by deploying video walls and LED screens in lobbies, breakrooms, hallways, and factory floors to facilitate internal communication. You can share real-time business analytics in graphic formats by integrating business intelligence tools with digital signage software.

Top 3 Business Intelligence Tools

The BI market has many competitors, each offering powerful features to power data visualization. The top tools are:

1. Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI is a top-performing analytics platform for aggregating data and presenting analytics in easy-to-digest visuals. Power BI isn’t a single app. Rather, it is a suite of several cloud-based apps that connect to various data sources, including Excel spreadsheets, Salesforce, and on-premises databases. Microsoft offers Power BI as a desktop app, mobile app, and online SaaS.

This business intelligence platform offers many invaluable features, including:

• Custom Visualizations

Microsoft BI features many standard visualizations to help you create instant reports. As such, users don’t have to be data scientists or data analysts to navigate the platform’s dashboards. Microsoft BI offers open-source data visualization tools if you desire more complex graphs and maps to process advanced analytics.  

• Numerous Data Connectors

Today, companies use multiple databases to manage data like CRM, ERP, and accounting software. Power BI connectors simplify the process of moving data from any database, data warehouse, or application in real-time. Consequently, you get a comprehensive view of all company metrics regardless of where your data is stored.

• Analyze Massive Data Volumes

The Microsoft BI platform is an excellent tool for analyzing massive data sets, thanks to incredible data compression capabilities. While Excel worksheets limit data to 1,048,576 rows, Microsoft BI’s default segment size is 8 million rows. Power BI lets users switch from a broad view of information to a more detailed one via drill-downs. In the future, companies must adopt sophisticated tools to analyze large datasets, given that 175 zettabytes of new data will be generated worldwide by 2025.

• Report Sharing

Microsoft BI features a drag-and-drop canvas to create stunning reports and send them to employee emails. Further, authorized people access the Power BI Report Server via mobile devices or web browsers without worrying about data security.

• Natural Language Questions

Power BI offers an interactive Q&A tool that lets users write questions and unlock business insights. By infusing artificial intelligence in Power BI, Microsoft empowers users to travel through their data, uncovering exciting discoveries along the way.

2. Klipfolio

Klipfolio is among the most popular business intelligence tools for organizations that want to make data more transparent and accessible. It features low-end pricing plans that attract both large- and small-scale businesses. Primarily, Klipfolio is a self-service Bi software for achieving visual analysis and creating dashboards. To this end, this business intelligence software leverages several powerful features, including:

• Live Dashboards

The platform’s most attractive features are the interactive dashboards that visualize real-time data. You can design your dashboards or use those optimized for financial management, supply chain management, marketing workflows, and other business operations. The dashboards offer different tables, charts, and graphs to visualize your key performance indicators (KPIs) and display them on digital office signs.

• Data Integration

Klipfolio boasts hundreds of data integrations to drive decision-making and facilitate data discovery. The platform is compatible with popular databases like Oracle Thin, MSSQL, and Sybase SQL Anywhere and cloud-based apps like Google Adwords, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Analytics. In other words, you can connect to all data sources, including social media, to track business performance in real-time.

• Automated Reporting

Usually, creating monthly and yearly reporting is tedious and expensive. Luckily, Klipfolio offers reporting automation, where you can schedule email snapshots or reports based on entire dashboards or individual data visualizations. The platform’s reporting tools help you track the most critical metrics to inform decisions that drive profitability. Moreover, you can embed Klipfolio dashboards on websites or digital signage screens.

• Scalability

Klipfolio’s pricing model accommodates an organization’s growth since you upgrade or downgrade plans as needed. In addition, Klipfolio can customize a solution that helps business users manage multiple dashboards at once.

3. Tableau

Tableau is a user-friendly analytics solution that supports multiple data sources like Google Analytics, Oracle, Excel, and SalesForce. The ease with which end users can organize, visualize and understand data makes Tableau stand out from other business intelligence tools. Traveling through vast amounts of data can overwhelm any employee, and Tableau deploys numerous data management tools to help you discover patterns and actionable insights. Tableau’s best features include:

• Intuitive User Interface

Tableau boasts an intuitive design that includes drag-and-drop features, natural language query, multilingual representation of data, and drill-down capabilities to help users visualize data without any programming knowledge. The software’s ease of use allows employees to make graphical visualizations in a few minutes.

• Informative Dashboards

The software dashboards use visual objects, text, images, and other elements to provide a comprehensive data view. Further, the dashboards offer customizable data stories that let you apply different filters to track the most important measures. Additionally, you can copy a dashboard’s specific elements between workbooks to save time.

• Connectivity with In-Memory and Real-Time Data

Tableau provides a direct connection to databases, on-premises files, spreadsheets, and data warehouses so you can extract live data. Also, you can combine stored data from any source with real-time data for a more comprehensive look at your company’s performance.

• Predictive Analysis and Forecasting

Tableau software forms quick trend lines and forecasting, thanks to its dependable back-end and front-end servers. You can select relevant sections to your work and get instant predictions.

• Robust Security

Security is vital during data preparation as unauthorized users can leverage weak security to access privileged information. Thankfully, Tableau’s authentication permissions for user access and data sources enhance data security.

Choosing the Best Business Intelligence Tool

Business intelligence tools streamline data analytics, but they are not created equal. The most important features include connectivity to multiple data sources, customized dashboards, interactive reports, predictive analytics, data visualization in simple formats, and Mobile BI. Ultimately, the best BI software makes it easy for users of all skill levels to visualize data and derive meaningful insights.