The key to determining what data infrastructure your company needs is applicability. There are many business intelligence services and analytics tools from leading providers, in a variety of packages and at different costs and levels of scalability. Choice isn’t the challenge, nor quality. Companies often need help to find solutions that will gel with an existing data analysis setup.
Cast Solutions lives by the belief that the right data solution isn’t necessarily the most advanced, or the most comprehensive; the right solution is whatever business intelligence (BI) software helps achieve your enterprise goals. Read on for our guide on choosing the best BI software.
The importance of business intelligence software
Whether identifying trends in sales data or highlighting errors in developing computer programmes, BI software helps organizations to reduce time spent on data management and analysis. This frees up time for data analysts and data management consultants to make value-add insights.
This is a point held up by Gartner in a recent report on data integration tools. Gartner predicts that by 2023 augmented data management will reduce the reliance on IT specialists for low-impact data management tasks. This will free up 20% of their time for collaboration, training and consultation, human-driven tasks unable to be replicated by machine learning or AI technology.
BI software might not be the right data analytics tool for businesses at any stage of growth; however, it can be a silver bullet for companies planning on making operations more intuitive.
What are the leading BI software providers?
Gartner’s 2020 report divided leading BI software providers into a ‘Magic Quadrant’ comparing their place in the market, completeness of vision and ability to execute data objectives. Cast Solutions works with many of these providers and can recommend four of the leading names:
1) Qlik
US-based Qlik offers data management and BI-powered products such as Qlik Replicate, Qlik Compose, Qlik Enterprise Manager and Qlik Sense to more than 3,000 organisations globally. It’s strengths include:
- Competence in data replication: Qlik continues to be selected by clients in competitive situations for targeted data replication. This helps to reduce the risks of data disparity between different sources and improve the accuracy of BI software insights.
- Ease of use: Customers regularly cite Qlik’s ease of use – including in installation and configuration, automated code generation and non-disruptive implementation – as reasons for selecting the vendor over competitors.
- Market momentum: Qlik has acquired numerous small-scale providers to ensure a consistent experience in its data analytics tools. Partnerships with vendors such as AWS and Microsoft Azure also means Qlik has registered major annual market share growth.
Tableau
Owned by Salesforce, Tableau has operated in the data industry for nearly two decades and boasts clients including Lufthansa, Honeywell, and Verizon. It’s strengths include:
- Applicability: Tableau has designed BI software to help people go beyond seeing data to understanding it. This universal knowledge accommodates a range of different users, including data analysts, operational teams, software partners, and C-suite executives.
- R&D investment: Since its foundation, Tableau has invested in data solutions research and development at an unrivaled pace. This has helped the provider to develop solutions at the cutting edge of the data industry.
- Strong backing: With its acquisition by Salesforce in 2019, Tableau can claim to have the support of a true titan in the tech industry. This offers the BI software developer significant market outreach and scalability that few other providers can match.
Microsoft Power BI
A core component of the Microsoft Power Platform suite of data products, Power BI is used by the largest companies in the world to provide interactive data visualizations and BI capabilities. It’s strengths include:
- Industry leader: Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms recognized Microsoft as a market leader for the fourteenth consecutive year. With the rate at which technology is evolving, this is a staggering achievement.
- Data security: Power BI is secured by Microsoft Information Protection software. This offers users data loss prevention and governance through cloud app security and helps companies meet regulatory requirements with a ‘bring your own key’ security feature.
- Strong backing: Similar to Tableau, Power BI has the budgetary, R&D investment and strategic outlook of one of the world’s largest technology brands. This enables the data analysts and developers behind the BI software to continuously re-iterate the tool.
Looker
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Looker models itself as a truly modern platform able to turn insights generated from its BI software into data-driven experiences for enterprise users. It’s strengths include:
- Dashboard-led: Data dashboards are often the best way to visualize information in a way that any business user can understand. Looker has designed its BI software around this dashboard concept to make it truly easy to understand.
- Data differentiation: Looker allows data analysts and business intelligence analysts to more easily define how different data sources relate to one another. This reduces the risk of data disparity and oversight of strategic information.
- Location: Looker’s Irish base means the company is cognizant of EU data regulations, including GDPR. This is useful for companies with interests in the European market.
Want more help in picking the right business intelligence software? Contact the Cast Solutions team today. We are one of Australia’s most knowledgeable and respected data solutions providers.
