The list of dos and don’ts can be long when tasked with acquiring a suitable BI (business intelligence) solution for your company. You need to balance the business intelligence capabilities with cost, a short learning curve and watertight security.

You must check for data quality, user autonomy, interactivity and visualization capabilities. The list goes on. Amidst this noise, having a list of essential capabilities saves time.

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Key Points

• What Is Business Intelligence?
• What Is BI Software?
• How Does BI Work?
• Benefits
• Top BI Capabilities
• Next Steps

What Is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence is using data to improve organizational performance. At its core, business intelligence functions by showing you your data — it doesn’t predict trends or prescribe action, though as we shall see later, they derive from it.

Predictive and prescriptive analytics are human-driven — how you harness BI data depends on your team’s ingenuity and what you do with the technology. Data analytics paves the way for business analytics that runs the organization.

There’s a lot under the surface here — BI is the backbone of many processes, making your software selection process crucial.

There’s more, and it has to do with big data integration. The speed at which business systems produce information is staggering, and if you don’t harness it today, it’ll be old news tomorrow.

What Is BI Software?

BI software solutions are applications for gathering, reporting and analyzing data to achieve your organizational goals.

Often, BI tools are more than data collection programs — they provide data management, supporting the information lifecycle from ingesting data to storing, transforming and analyzing it.

The BI software industry is born out of the need to harness data’s power. Technology evolves with industry demand, and real-time business intelligence is a reality.

Additionally, visualization libraries, data governance, data quality management (DQM), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are part of BI software, each imparting its distinct flavor to the solution.

Not all business intelligence software will have these capabilities, but you get the gist.

How Does BI Work?

Business intelligence functions on data from various sources. It helps if all the information is in one place — a centralized repository like a data warehouse.

BI systems connect to these databases and warehouses, routing the data into memory.

Data warehouse solutions deliver information on demand to BI and data analytics tools using data catalogs and metadata. They store and retrieve data fast, supporting many information types, including multidimensional data.

The warehouse system also transforms the data into a format your business systems will understand.

SQL works behind the scenes, letting you explore the data with intuitive actions on the front end. Self-service BI is in demand, with many employees not knowing SQL but interacting with data daily.

Querying against data is as simple as dragging fields onto the workspace and specifying the parameters and the result type. Do you want the result as a downloadable Excel sheet, as a visualization or in your Dropbox? It’s a matter of a few clicks.

BI tools can’t go it alone, so they interact with many technologies to deliver information quickly — Apache Hadoop is an example. It splits and distributes the workload on many servers, speeding up big data processing. Does your business need big data processing?

Many BI tools support OLAP (online analytical processing), a multidimensional processing technique.

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Primary Benefits

Keeping ahead of the curve, innovating and expanding the customer base are some reasons why businesses opt for a BI solution, and it pays to have the right one in your corner.

Here’s what you gain by adopting business intelligence tools and techniques.

• Get the complete business picture and share relevant insights with stakeholders.
• Maximize returns by understanding customer behavior and market trends.
• Boost efficiencies across departments with reliable and up-to-date information.
• Identify discrepancies and preempt bottlenecks.
• Optimize resource allocation.

Top BI Capabilities

Extensibility, self-service BI and interactivity are essential business intelligence capabilities. Here are some others to consider.

1. Data Management

Some BI tools offer limited source connectivity, while others are flexible, allowing you to build custom connectors.

The platform must be able to draw data from cloud sources, including eCommerce, POS (point-of-sale), invoicing, billing, procurement, supply chain and CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Internally, ERP (enterprise resource planning), payroll and EPM (employee performance management) systems are operational data sources. Externally, it varies by industry. For instance, manufacturing companies need inventory and warehouse information.

If your business needs IoT (Internet of Things) analytics, the solution should connect to chatbots, voice assistants, sensors, and streaming and edge devices.

2. Data Lineage Tracking

Knowing where your data comes from assures you of its reliability. Data lineage is a significant part of data quality management. That’s one less thing to worry about when many downstream processes rely on this information.

BI tools do you one better — they record this information, including the transformations it undergoes during its lifecycle, so you know what you’re getting.

Data catalogs and metadata provide important data lineage in databases and warehouses; else, we would be inundated with information without a clue about where it’s stored.
Lineage tracking becomes all the more important with big data analytics being a crucial business process.

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3. Interactive Data Visualizations

Data visualizations are any day preferable to tables with millions of rows and columns.

Interactive graphics make professional-looking presentations. Trying to explain sales projections? There’s a visual for it. Want to capture customer insight with gamification? There are visuals and animations for that.

You’re limited only by your imagination.

Visual analytics bridges the gap between non-technical users and their data. Connecting to sources, querying, analyzing results and reporting — you can do anything with visual tools.

BI tools have visualization libraries that offer maps, charts and graphs for data analysis. And the ones that don’t integrate with programs that do, like data visualization software solutions.

You can drag and drop data sets into charts and graphs and click on them to learn more. Look at this image of a Banksy Roadmap. On the website, selecting a region shows the famed graffiti artist’s creations in that area.

4. Cloud Deployment

Deployment is how you implement the software — on-premise, in the cloud or as a hybrid installation.

The last one is an excellent solution if legacy systems weigh you down. Keeping proprietary data on-premise while computing in the cloud gives you the best of both worlds.

In SelectHub’s survey of BI software buyers, 23% of the respondents preferred cloud BI software. Of the 69% on the fence, 10% leaned toward the cloud.

A lightweight deployment model, vendor maintenance and scalability — what’s not to like? It’s cost-effective — pay for only what you use. Free plugins are few, but you can upgrade to the platform’s paid version for more features.

5. Customization and Integration

Enriching proprietary insights with transactional systems completes the business picture but leaves money on the table if external systems aren’t connected to your in-house platforms.

Many vendors provide customization options by offering software development kits (SDKs) with built-in APIs. Additionally, an open architecture allows you to integrate the system with other platforms.

APIs (application programming interfaces) are Java, C# and Python-based interfaces for applications to communicate mutually. They enable extensibility — enhancing the functionality of your tech stack.

Integration enables seamless data exchange and workflows across systems, including other BI and analytics tools. Vendor offerings include BI tools for industry verticals like CRM, manufacturing ERP, transportation and logistics, healthcare and accounting.

Consider open-source BI software if you want flexibility and have the necessary resources for custom development.

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6. Reporting

Generating and distributing reports is a primary BI benefit. Its modern avatar is slicker and faster — ad hoc reports are the bread and butter of departments across organizations.

But we can’t write off canned reports yet. Sales, inventory, procurement, human resources, financial and marketing reports are regular in many organizations.

BI tools offer both types of reports, though some vendors refer to dashboards as reports, so it’s better to make your requirements clear at the onset.

Independent data exploration and interactivity are essential when you need on-the-fly insights. Data filtering, sorting, grouping and blending are must-have business intelligence functions.

Branding provides a smooth user experience to clients with the company name, logo, colors and fonts — white labeling the BI solution should take care of it. Does your preferred BI vendor offer white labeling?

BI reports can incorporate images, tables and visualizations. Pixel-perfect formatting is important for proper report rendering. The reports must embed into applications and websites and be shareable via email.

Read our article on reporting features and requirements for more.

7. Dashboard Management

Dashboard solutions are BI tools providing decision support with unified data views. Big data insights are easy to understand when viewed on a single dashboard. You get two for the price of one — data visualization and BI workflows — in one neat package.

In the SelectHub survey above, 90% of respondents said they wanted dashboarding in their BI platform.

Many such tools refresh dashboard data periodically — some have configurable schedules, while others might update at default time intervals. Incremental refreshes update only the changed data rather than a complete refresh, which is resource-intensive.

Interlinking dashboards and visualizations keep your presentation contextual and clutter-free. At the same time, it allows in-depth analysis by clicking on links within the current dashboard. Interactivity does the rest, delivering the desired information on demand.

8. Collaboration

Emails that get buried in your inbox, paper reports that increase your company’s carbon footprint and other outdated memo systems need not slow you down.

BI software supports working smarter by reducing turnarounds and inviting collaboration within the dashboard or report. Permissions configuration enables data access to the concerned teams so they can work together on documents, tasks and within workspaces.

You can leave comments, ask questions and tag team members for follow-ups within the dashboard, reducing the time to insight.

Collaboration isn’t a technical business intelligence capability but crucial for quick insight and smoother workflows.

9. Predictive Analytics and Modeling

Predictive analytics is a top priority for organizations across the board. Forecasting trends can help you navigate the unpredictable business landscape in the face of pandemics, natural disasters, wars and other socio-economic disruptions.

Business intelligence is fast and inclusive, incorporating factors like seasonality, the global financial status and local factors like the weather into data. Combining real-world variables with business metrics helps you anticipate how your products fare.

With predictive analytics as an essential business intelligence capability, you can preempt blockers and risks and pivot to adjust to changing market conditions.

Machine learning changed the forecasting game with predictive algorithms that evolve with user searches and previous activity. The more the data, the more reliable the results.

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Next Steps

Finding the ideal BI solution with your preferred business intelligence capabilities is challenging. Ready to start your search? Save time with our free requirements template to list your key criteria for acquiring functionality that matters the most to your business.

Learn about the leading BI solutions with our Jumpstart Platform. We score the software products based on in-depth research and buyer reviews.

With the right BI tool, you can stay competitive and better prepare for upcoming challenges and opportunities.

Which BI capabilities are you interested in and why? Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments section below.