Business Intelligence Platforms to Use in 2023
Business intelligence (BI) is more important now than ever, with enterprises across the globe and various industries looking to optimise their operations and limit their risks. As of 2022, Dataprot reports that 52% of software companies and 50% of finance companies use BI platforms. Do you? Or do you simply recognise your need for BI platforms?
To find the best business intelligence platforms for your business and optimise your data analytics and other key processes, it’s imperative to keep up with the latest BI trends, including advances in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and APIs. With the right BI platforms, you can make smart, well-informed decisions to improve your ROI dramatically.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence refers to the technology-driven process of collecting and analysing data to understand the functioning of certain aspects of your company. This process provides your business with reliable, actionable insights for future decision-making.
However, data is not always centralised. It can get messy and complicated, causing you more stress than insights. That’s where business intelligence platforms come in.
What Are Business Intelligence Platforms?
Business intelligence platforms collect the necessary data from various internal and external sources. Next, data is prepared for analysis and ‘cleansed’, meaning any outliers or missing information that might lead to unreliable results is eliminated from the data sets; this process balances the data.
Business intelligence platforms use various techniques to create a model for data queries. The feedback from this process gives your business insight into your processes, which can help you understand past mistakes, confidently make future decisions, and even predict what will happen next.
Business intelligence tools can improve a business’s operational efficiency and give it a competitive edge against its rivals.
Why Is It Important to Keep Up With Business Intelligence Trends?
Business intelligence tools are constantly advancing, as with any other technology or technologically reliant process. Since business intelligence combines analytics, data management and reporting tools, and various data analytics techniques, your business can continuously improve its capabilities if you keep up with BI trends and advances.
Here are several of the latest trends in business intelligence platforms for you to explore in 2023:
BI Platforms Trend One: SaaS and Cloud Computing
A notable development in business intelligence is the rising popularity of Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing systems. SaaS is a software distribution process where a cloud provider hosts applications and makes them available to users online. In other words, users can access software by proxy.
Today, most organisations are migrating their data analytics processes onto cloud-based services and solutions.
Here are some examples of SaaS business intelligence tools and cloud solutions that your business can benefit from in 2023:
- Google Analytics. You can tailor Google Analytics to your needs, measure your ROI, and receive actionable insights into your company’s processes and results of your marketing and operations.
Google Analytics is one of the best web analytics tools for gaining insight into customer demographics and gathering useful information to improve product and marketing targeting.
- ProfitWell. The ProfitWell business intelligence platform automatically improves retention and monetisation by providing customers with financial, usage, and attribution data. Businesses across the globe use ProfitWell to reduce churn rates, optimise pricing, and grow their subscription businesses.
The good news for your business is that it’s easy to integrate the ProfitWell software with well-known technologies such as Hubspot, Slack, and Stripe. - Salesforce. Salesforce makes your customer relationship management more effective. Your employees can draw information from various data sets and give feedback on a single customer. Ultimately, Salesforce combines information about sales, marketing, and other company departments into one data powerhouse.
This AI-integrated business intelligence tool lets your company plan and optimise individual customer experiences. In an era where personalisation is paramount, and customers want to feel like a priority, this could be a secret weapon for your business.
It is worth noting, however, that any goodbusiness intelligence platform like Salesforce should be configured and maintained by a professional ITES company, like solverASSIST, if you wish to reap its full benefits.
What Are the Different Types of Cloud Computing?
Hybrid cloud services are becoming favoured by businesses everywhere. Otherwise, there are public cloud services and private cloud services. Public cloud services are cost-effective, but also present more security concerns. Private clouds are better secured, but unfortunately more costly.
The great benefit of hybrid clouds is that they balance security and cost, providing a financially accessible and relatively safe platform for BI processes. It saves companies the time, effort, and energy it would take them to install and manage their BI processes independently.
Additional benefits of hybrid cloud services include:
- Real-time updates. If the cloud provider updates its system or software, this is instantly accessible to end users.
- Hybrid clouds are also scalable, lower operational costs, and ultimately offer flexibility for the future.
BI Platforms Trend Two: Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
An API is a software interface that allows two different systems to talk to each other.
They act as messengers, delivering real-time requests and responses between applications.
API technology is shaping the field of data analytics. Thanks to the power of APIs, businesses can integrate their analytics solutions and construct tailored BI solutions.
However, while APIs can be used with business intelligence tools to make your business systems more powerful, you will likely require developers to implement and monitor them to ensure that all relevant systems communicate the right data. If APIs are not your area of expertise, it is advisable to reach out to experts who can effectively build and integrate APIs into your business’s technology.
Here are some APIs you might want to work alongside your business intelligence platforms:
- Private APIs. Private APIs are exclusive to your company’s internal team, where they improve productivity and increase transparency. Developers working for your company can access these APIs, but third-party developers don’t.
- Public APIs. Also known as open APIs, public APIs are available for external use. They don’t require any authorisation to access or retrieve data. Some public APIs are free, while others are subscription-based.
- Partner APIs. These interfaces are shared with other companies with which the API provider has a business relationship. They are not publicly available, and permission is required to grant access. Therefore, security measures are stronger with partner APIs than with public APIs.
- Composite APIs. Composite APIs combine multiple API services, allowing developers to access several endpoints simultaneously. Composite APIs are useful when you require information from various services to perform one task.
The first step to using this business intelligence tool is finding the best API to integrate into your business processes. You might already have your eye on a particular API, but ensure you have your business’s best interests in mind when building your API.
BI Platforms Trend Three: Self-Service Business Intelligence Platforms
Self-service business intelligence platforms allow your team to sort and analyse data themselves without waiting for the IT team to gather insights. The process involves ad hoc reporting and analysis, which means a report can be created, and questions can be answered immediately.
This self-service process is empowering and efficient. Using simple data connectors and intuitive interfaces, you can do more with your data without enlisting technical help. You can perform tasks such as predictive analytics and what-if scenarios simply and effectively.
Examples of reputable self-service business intelligence tools include the following:
Self-service business intelligence platforms are great; however, companies need to integrate application support services to help maintain and configure their business intelligence tools if they want to enjoy the full benefits.
BI Platforms Trend Four: AI-Driven Business Intelligence Platforms
Data’s growing complexity makes the idea of artificial intelligence (AI) -driven business intelligence platforms appealing to companies. Automation is a key drawcard, and the benefits of automation for your business operations include:
- Lowering expenses.
- Offering reliable privacy protection.
- Saving time and manpower.
- Boosting an organisation’s adaptability and flexibility.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) technology enable businesses to integrate a wide range of data sources and ensure reliability and consistency in their processes.
With AI-integrated processes, your business can lean into an automated system that is more reliable than a manual one, allowing you to forecast trends and receive a better return on investment faster.
The advantages of adopting AI and machine learning-integrated business intelligence platforms include the following:
- Adaptability stemming from real-time solutions.
- Improved privacy protection compared to traditional business intelligence methods.
- More reliable results.
- East integration with existing systems, provided they aren’t archaic.
With the right data analysis support, your business intelligence systems can operate seamlessly, and you can access deep insight into its data to enhance decision-making.
BI Platforms Trend Five: Augmented Analytics
Augmented analytics marks a new era of business intelligence. It transforms how you clean and prepare data sets, generate results, and receive insights. Using ML models, augmented analytics systems allow even non-technically inclined individuals to analyse data and draw insights from the process.
AI-based augmented analytics processes increase user trust with time, giving more accurate suggestions and interactions based on cues.
A great example of an AI-integrated solution is SVM Analytics. It applies decision support solutions built on machine learning, deep learning, and advanced analytics techniques to help its clients optimise their business/IT strategy, identify new growth areas, and outperform the competition.
Business Intelligence Platforms for the Future
From the integration of AI and ML to extensive software integrations through APIs and other SaaS products, the future is bright for your business.
The insights gained from the right data at the right time through business intelligence platforms can help keep your business operations running smoothly and efficiently.
With solverASSIST, your business can receive fundamental support services to keep your BI solutions up-to-date and working optimally. To ensure the success of your business, consult our team of experts who understand the nuances of business intelligence platforms and data interfaces. Contact us with your questions. Let us help you reap the rewards of business intelligence platforms far into the future.
