7 Criteria for Choosing Your BI Tools

Companies no longer make decisions based on intuition, but on data. These resources, dubbed the gold of the 21st century, provide valuable information in areas as diverse as marketing, finance, and human resources. While they are so relevant, data are also very numerous in the era of Big Data. Sometimes too much! Sorting through the masses of available information is no small task. This is where business intelligence software comes to the rescue. Capable of sorting through enormous volumes of data, they facilitate data analysis, thus helping organizations make more informed decisions.

But beware, because not all business intelligence solutions are equal. Or at least, not all are adapted to your specific needs. So how do you choose your BI tool? The Cube school lists the most relevant criteria.

Business Intelligence Software to Steer Your Activity

Business Intelligence refers to technological processes aimed at facilitating strategic decision-making through data. These tools are all the more important as the amount of available data is constantly evolving.

Without adequate solutions, companies could not exploit their resources, as the processing alone would take far too long.

Business intelligence tools then come to the rescue. They optimize the entire data processing process:

Collection: from a wide variety of data sources, such as social networks, CRM software, Excel files, customer feedback, ...

Storage: all information is centralized within a data lake or data warehouse to avoid data silos.

Analysis: through modeling methods allowing to make connections between data sets.

Data visualization: thanks to reporting tools, graphs and tables, the data is easily understandable to all employees, regardless of their level of technical skills.

By automating all these steps, business intelligence tools allow companies to steer their activity through data.

6 Criteria for Choosing Your BI Tools Well

Tableau, Power BI, Qlik Sense, Looker Studio, SiSense, SAP Business Objects... There are dozens of business intelligence solutions. But not all are suitable for your company. To help you find yours, here are 7 selection criteria.

1. Analysis of Your Needs

Before even comparing offers to choose your BI tool, you need to take stock of your needs. To do this, you should ask yourself different questions:

Why do you want to implement business intelligence software?

In which area do you really need it (finance, marketing, HR, R&D, ...)?

What is the size of your structure?

What are your growth objectives?

What are the expected results?

What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor?

What is the volume of data to be processed?

What is your budget?

What is your level of technological maturity?

What is the level of technological skills of the employees in charge of business intelligence?

How is your data stored?

Is it centralized in a data warehouse?

What are the essential features?

The answers to all these questions will then determine the choice of your BI tools.

2. The Volume of Data to Process

Not all BI tools have the same data processing capabilities. From a certain volume, the less performant ones can start to slow down.

It is therefore advisable to choose a BI software that meets your needs. If you have a huge amount of data to process, select an ultra-powerful solution, like SiSense. However, if the volume of data is limited, it is not necessary to invest as much in a business intelligence tool. A solution like Power BI can prove to be largely sufficient.

3. Available Features

Although most BI tools have similar features (data collection, storage, analysis, and visualization), some offer you additional options. For example:

Recommendations based on artificial intelligence;

Predictive analytics;

Automatic data modeling;

Integrated A/B testing;

Automatic anomaly detection;

Embedded analytics;

etc.

Before choosing your BI tool, you must compare all these features. But be careful not to get caught up in the shiny object syndrome. Prioritize the features you really need (based on your previously conducted assessment).

4. Ease of Use

Not all users of business intelligence software necessarily have advanced technical skills. So to facilitate adoption by everyone, choose a BI tool that is intuitive and easy to use.

The idea is that everyone can customize their dashboards and integrate the information they need to optimize decision-making.

5. Flexibility

Whether due to future growth or use by a plurality of profiles, your business intelligence software must be flexible. In other words, it should meet the current and future needs of all your employees. For this, it's better to choose a BI tool with the following characteristics:

Connectivity with other software used internally;

Collaboration with simultaneous use;

Accessibility to consult your reports on computer or smartphone.

6. Price

After considering all these elements, comes the question of price. And yes, these business intelligence solutions have a cost. You must select one that incorporates all of your criteria defined upstream, while respecting your budget.

It's not about choosing the cheapest, at the risk of being limited in your analysis capabilities. However, it is not necessary to multiply features at the risk of blowing your budget. It's up to you to find the right compromise to choose your BI tool.