business intelligenceAre you facing trouble in analyzing the data and making an informed decision?

Do you want to ensure all your business processes are under control without massive IT involvement?

Are you pondering over which business intelligence tool can help you derive insights and achieve business goals? 

Do not worry! You are in the right place. In this article, you will look at the top-notch business intelligence tools for both small and big organizations. Hopefully, the below-added information will help you to choose the most appropriate tool from the tons of different options. 

Before navigating to the list of business intelligence tools, let’s firstly know what business intelligence tools are and why businesses use these tools.

What are BI Tools and Why to Use It? 

Business Intelligence tools are the softwares used to analyze, gather, visualize, and process huge data effortlessly. These tools allow organizations to generate actionable business insights, store data, create manageable dashboards, and simplifies the decision-making process. 

Supported data sources, Ad-Hoc Reporting, Data discovery, visualization, mobile capabilities, access control, standard reporting, scheduling, security, KPI scoreboard, etc. are some features of Business intelligence tools. 

Now, let’s look at the benefits of business intelligence tools that allow organizations to use this professional software or tools. 

Benefits of BI Tools

  • Business intelligence tools offer full SaaS BI experience
  • Improves analysis, planning, and reporting processes
  • Reduces business costs and increase revenue
  • Automate the reporting processes and eliminates manual tasks
  • Helps to generate insights to deliver the best possible results
  • Gives the organization a competitive advantage
  • Easily identify the area for improvement
  • Allows the organization to gather the relevant data at one centralized place

The benefits of business intelligence tools are endless. No matter whether you are running a small company or a large enterprise, business intelligence tools will help you to reach your business desires and ensure a higher level of productivity. 

business intelligence tools

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Now, let’s take a rundown at the best business intelligence tools available in the market. 

Top 6 Business Intelligence Tools for 2021

#1- Microsoft Power BI

If you are in search of a free web-based business intelligence platform, then power BI is the best tool to go with. This powerful data visualization tool offers a drag-and-drop interface that allows both data scientists and business analytics to identify trends in real-time. 

It is available in two different versions (Power BI Desktop and Power BI mobile). As it is cloud-based software, therefore, anyone can have a look at the performance analytics. It is one of the highest-rated BI tools as it not only helps to consolidate data from different sources but also allows the companies to understand the future reports better. 

Features:

  • Creates real-time visualization
  • Integrates easily with different sources
  • Shares insights on mobile devices
  • Offers custom visualization 
  • Easy to Use
  • Offer a full audit trail, etc. 

To learn more about Power BI, explore Beginners Guide to Power BI. 

#2- Datapine

Datapine is another all-in-one business intelligence tool that is not only easy to use but also allows the non-technical users to analyze, visualize, and explore the data from different sources. 

Its data integration capability helps the users to analyze the data from different sources. Additionally, businesses of all sizes can implement this tool and can create their own queries via its SQL mode. Thanks to its powerful features that help the users to have a clear picture of their goals and derive business growth.

Features:

  • Offers drag and drop interface that allows performing effective visualization with few clicks.
  • Generate customized and standard reports
  • Easy to use 
  • Offers a variety of interactive dashboard features (like hierarchical features, chart zooms, drill-downs, etc.)
  • Helps in generating smart insights and alarms
  • Allows to perform advanced data analytics

#3- Zoho Analytics

It is a self-service business intelligence tool used to visualize the data and create insightful dashboards quickly. It gives the option to automatically generate reports and configurable report access settings. These options not only allow the users to generate the reports easily but also helps them to visualize the data and get the results easily. 

Additionally, it comes with a variety of features that assist the users to create meaningful and personalized reports. 

Features:

  • Offer different types of data visualization options like summary views, charts, custom themed dashboards, charts, etc. 
  • Offers smart data alerts and forecasting
  • Provide unified business analytics from different business apps. 
  • Allows the users to create and share the reports without any assistance
  • Help the users to understand queries asked in different languages easily.

#4- Yellowfin BI

If you are looking for a single integrated solution that can help you monitor your business with ease, then Yellowfin BI is another option. It is an end-to-end business intelligence web-based platform used to access, monitor, and understand tons of data quickly. 

It includes AI-driven dashboards, data preparation, analysis, etc. to present real-time data as per the business requirements. Thus, its excellent features ranked Yellowfin BI in the top list of business intelligence tools. 

Features:

  • Flexible and easy to access
  • Allow the users to make effective insights via interactive reports and data-rich presentation
  • Offer features like mapping mobile BI to analyze business-related data. 
  • Helps to make fast and smart decisions
  • Offers persuasive data stories
  • Supports in the decision-making process

Useful background: Introductory Video

#5- SAS Business Intelligence

SAS Business Intelligence is another popular, robust, integrated, and flexible tool well known for making the right information and providing high-quality connections between the users and data sources. It is a self-service tool that helps to leverage data and make informed decisions. 

It provides lots of customization options, advanced analytics, high-level data integration, real-time reporting, etc. for data analytics, data scientists, forecasting analysts, etc. Moreover, its compelling features and technologies help to build customer’s trust. So, if you want to enjoy this high-level tool, then don’t forget to look at its amazing features.

Features:

  • Secure all the data via Security issue identification and resolution feature 
  • Provides real-time analysis
  • Helps to perform self-service reporting quickly
  • Offers automated analysis via machine learning
  • Used by both Android and iOS users
  • It can be integrated with Microsoft Office applications like Word, PowerPoint, etc. 

#6- Sisense

Sisense is another effective data and analytics platform used to manage, visualize, and analyze complex datasets. By using this tool, anyone within the organization can easily bring together data from different sources in less time. 

Due to its simple, scalable, and streamlined interface, users can easily access the tool without any assistance. Moreover, it uses in-chip and single stack technology that help the users to process the data quickly. 

Features:

  • Uses ElectricCube and can be run on both cloud, and on-premises
  • Offers profitability analytics, key performance indicators, and strategic planning
  • Provides leading features like data visualization, Ad hoc Queries, Ad-hoc Reports, Ad hoc Analysis
  • Users can signup for a free demo.

Useful reading: Tips for Improving Your BI Strategy.

In a Nutshell 

There are no two opinions that gathering and analyzing the huge amount of data is challenging, but the organizations that are using business intelligence tools are successful in making an informed decision. 

No doubt, it’s difficult to choose the one tool from the huge list of competitors. Hopefully, the above information will help you to choose the perfect tool that fits your business, company, or department. 

So, what are you waiting for? Make your business stand out from the rest with the modern BI solution.