Running through spreadsheets, tables, and paper reports is a thing of the past. As we have all experienced, studying rows and columns of data to unearth meaning can get daunting. This is where data visualization steps in. To achieve higher efficiencies and to keep up with the rising competition, companies need to empower relevant personnel by providing access to their data in understandable formats and impart the expertise to crunch that data, in order to eventually derive actionable insights. This post will answer all the questions that you may have about creating dashboards.
What has changed in business intelligence over the years?
The need for analysis and easier ways to access data have been ongoing endeavors for humanity. The BI space has seen an incredible rise in the past few years with the prevalence of cloud computing and proliferation of mobile devices. Here, we will see the three waves of business intelligence over the years.
1st wave – Technical (IT to end user)
The first wave of business intelligence consisted of the end user requesting the IT department for reports. Any changes, updates would take effort and time and would make it difficult to reflect changes to varying departments.
2nd wave – Self-service (Analyst to end user)
The second wave introduced analysts who eased the role of IT resulting in more teams gaining access to business intelligence as data insights became even more prevalent.
3rd wave – Everyone (End user)
The third wave, with Power BI, empowers everyone in the company with the ability to gather reports using intuitive and sharable dashboards.
What makes Power BI the ideal data visualization tool?
Power BI allows you to experience any data, in any way, at any place. Power BI dashboards and reports are live and can show visualizations and KPI’s from data residing anywhere, whether it is on-premises or the cloud and it provides a holistic view of your entire business. It is a cloud-based business analytics service that enables;
- Fast and easy access to your data
- A live 360° view of your business
- Data discovery and exploration
- Insights from any device
- Collaboration across your organization
- Anyone to visualize and analyze data
You can connect to a variety of data sources like;
- Popular SaaS solutions
- On-premises databases
- Custom data sources
- Azure services
- Power BI Designer and Excel files
On top of the above mentioned advantages, Power BI has been recognized as a leader in Business Intelligence by Gartner Magic Quadrant, Forrester Wave and PC Magazine Editors’ Choice.
Who will be able to author reports?
Anyone in the organization will be able to author reports, reiterating the fact that data analysis does not require dedicated developers to design/create visuals. The company’s management can create their own dashboards and decide which data they want to be displayed. They can even share these reports with anyone in or out of the company. Powered by the cloud, these visuals are accessible from any location at any time. This transparency can lead to even faster decisions at the management level.
