Business intelligence or BI tools come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, but all of them have one goal in mind: to help users get insight from business data. A great BI tool won’t just give you data but guide you through the next steps in the process. But if you want to go further, you could use a business analytics tool to help you predict business trends and look for areas of improvement in the business process. But do you know which attributes a good BI or BA tool should have? Many people who took Business Analytics master’s program or courses often look for the following attributes.
In-Depth Data Drilling
Drilling data essentially means diving deep into business data so that you could obtain specific answers that are filtered by source, location, and time. This feature is extremely crucial in real-time, as it would enable you to look into all the details you need with just one click. This would save you lots of time and effort when making decisions.
Data Visualisation
Representation of visual data is immensely practical for businesses that want to decrease their IT dependency. Most BI tools nowadays use infographics for making sense of data chaos. They also use it to represent data in a transparent manner so that they could analyse both data and process. This could help them forecast possible trends and changes.
Suggestive Intelligence
This feature is handy for exploring patterns and trends as well as suggesting solutions according to existing data. For example, if you’re trying to think why your sale figure in a specific store is lower in May, it would search for relevant employees fit to give you answers to your queries.
Predictive Intelligence
While you probably turn to your gut instinct or experience when making personal decisions, in business, this isn’t acceptable. When making business decisions, you need facts and figures, measurable data, which a great BI tool could provide to ensure that you make the best possible decision.
Predictive modeling can help prepare any business for the future. This predictive intelligence uses ad-hoc reporting. This report allows companies to analyse specific data in real time. These often use targeted questions to resolve previous issues that the company might have encountered.
Streamlined Collaboration
Whether you’re looking to share data, discuss issues, view a dashboard of one collaborator, or evaluate data, you should have the ability to collaborate with your group from one system. This would help make sure that everyone is on the same page, giving you quantitative and qualitative insights.
The majority of business intelligence tools have at least one or all the abovementioned qualities; one might have powerful data drilling capabilities, but lack data visualisation or one might be excellent at suggestive intelligence, but not so much with collaboration. The Business Information tool that’s right for your business should be able to address your specific pain points. As long as your BI tool could rise to your business challenges, it’s the perfect one for your business.
