Data increasingly plays a pivotal role in any business’s day to day activities, and it takes effective business intelligence solutions to be able to manage it. Not only does the data need to be accurate, but it needs to be conveyed and shown in a way that is understandable, that lets you see the relationship between data sets and the story they tell. Choosing a business analytics system is no easy task, as there are many factors to consider.
What is Business Analytics Software?
Business intelligence solutions allow companies to perform reporting and in depth analysis of detailed information across every reach of their organization. They access data from various applications, systems and data bases, format it and present it to end users in an understandable format. Often, they use color graphs and charts to show the relationships between various factors. They allow managers more effective decision making by providing core data that clearly explains the relationship or a problem and what solutions might be available.
Why Does Your Company Need Business Intelligence Solutions?
The challenge to manage enterprise data can be especially challenging for organizations simply because there has literally never been so much data at prior point in human history. Critical business data is scattered across a range of platforms that are just far too complicated to keep up on with the naked eye. Keeping up on every factor would require an extensive IT staff which most businesses simply can’t afford to do. Business analytics provides a much more cost effective system. Data is automatically entered and deciphered in the system. You get an instant report based on solid data, and can instantly see that data’s relationship in everything you do.
Features
There are several features offered in today’s business intelligence solutions, and if your business analytics does not include them, you’re getting short changed. One important aspect of today’s software is ad hoc reporting. This minimizes the burden on IT resources by ensuring that front line workers have immediate access to all the data they need to know in order to do their jobs. The best business analytics allow functional end users to build and run their own reports while shielding from the complexities of underlying data. This way, they have what they need to do their job without being overburdened by confusing data. This also helps add to the security of your data.
Flexible output formats are also key in any business intelligence solutions. Make sure your business analytics enables users to report data in a variety of formats, including spreadsheets, HTML, word processing documents and other mediums. The reporting of data takes many forms. Make sure you have a system that can handle them all.