Modern business is already unthinkable without tools to support management decision-making – business intelligence systems. So, this article will analyze the most effective tools in 2022.
What is Business Intelligence?
Many financial managers in organizations face difficulties making decisions due to the lack of operationally reliable information and consolidated reporting. You have to make decisions intuitively or based on previous periods. The main reason for such a situation is banal – insufficient time and resources. Financiers and analysts work like bees, collecting the necessary information from accounting systems, databases, billing, and other Excel files. On average, about 80% of the time is spent on data “mining,” and only 20% is left for their analysis and decision-making. Many organizations still wait until the end of the month for reporting information to get the data they need when it is too late to take any corrective action and influence the bottom line. Today, companies have more and more data, making it more difficult to work with it. One of the ways to effectively solve these problems is using business intelligence tools – Business Intelligence (BI).
BI is the process of extracting business information from primary sources and turning it into knowledge for effective management decisions. It is carried out by professional analyst managers using special technologies, methods, and tools. The business analysis allows you to get a reliable picture of the current state of affairs in the enterprise in all areas, divisions, and functional units. In addition, a comprehensive business analysis allows you to evaluate and identify the main patterns of enterprise development and the real factors and causes of certain changes, successes, or failures in current and strategic activities.
The scope of application of BI platforms is quite wide. For example, it can be used in risk management, finance, health care, industrial production, and services, as well as in marketing, city management, working on the Internet and social networks, analyzing personal data, etc.
The most popular BI tools in 2022
Among the analytics tools, there are painfully familiar Microsoft products (the same Excel, for example, is not going to give up its position). But, if this is not enough, you can connect special software tailored to your company’s needs. So, there are some effective tools offered by BI vendors in 2022:
- Customizable dashboards. The software creates an overview of metrics in customizable dashboards that can be filtered by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and are easily accessible to all users.
- Collaboration features. It helps users share and discuss information, analyses, insights, and visualizations through discussion threads, chats, and annotations; Remote access via mobile devices is a key component and enables group communication asynchronously over time and across extended geographies.
- Integration tools and file removal (ETL). ETL receives the necessary information from external source systems, processes, cleans, and loads into a single repository.
- Analytical data warehouse. It is a database that structures and analyzes the received elements.
- Data mining tools. These tools are engaged in the processing and analysis of data for various slices. The system identifies dependencies and trends using a variety of information processing techniques.
- Data visualization tools. It is directly an information product with which the user works. Following the task, the requested information can be presented in reports, graphs, diagrams, built according to the approved format, or analytical. Users can independently set the necessary indicators, organize information, and filter.