The rise in Microsoft Power BI
All businesses have experienced a digital transformation. The move from paper to digital has resulted in a massive increase in the amount of valuable data captured and stored. It is estimated that by 2025 that there will be 175 zettabytes of data store worldwide. The rise of captured information presents an opportunity for businesses to analyse this data to make informed business decisions. However, with such a large amount of information, organisations must rely on specialised software for this analysis. Microsoft Power BI is a powerful business analytics and data visualisation software that allows businesses of all sizes to bridge the gap between data and decision making. Below is 9 benefits of using Power BI within your business.
9 benefits of Power BI
Simple to use
One of the key benefits of Power PI is that it is simple to use. This allows businesses to have access to powerful functionalities without the need for any specialised knowledge or expertise. Users are able to quickly create reports and dashboards from multiple data sources with a drag and drop feature.
Make accurate data-driven business decisions
Users can analyse and visualise data from multiple data sets to create to an accurate view of where a business currently is. Having this information in a clear visual state allows businesses to create accurate insights. These insights enable businesses to understand what is working well for them and what may not be so effective.
Ensure data is always up to date
In order to make informed data-driven decisions, it is essential that the dataset it up to date. With businesses constantly collecting data, it is important that the analytics and visualisation is updated regularly to reflect these changes. Within Power BI, data can be refreshed daily, or even hourly. As the data is compressed and the service is run through the Azure cloud, this process is both cost and time efficient.
View Power BI reports on any device, from anywhere
With the advent of hybrid work, it has become increasingly important to be able to access business applications from anywhere, on any device. Whether you are a salesperson on the road wanting to have a quick update on sales figures, or working from home, you can access Power BI on any device with an internet connection.
Share dashboards instantly with other departments
After a dashboard has been created in Power BI, it can easily be shared with other users or departments to share data visualisations and analytics. Being able to share these insights enables employees to drive innovation and collaborate to develop business strategies.
Save time with templates
For businesses looking to streamline their workflows, report templates can easily be created and used within Power BI. This can save time for users, especially if similar reports are used by different departments.
Built with Security in Mind
When dealing with large amounts of company data, security extremely importance. Power BI is secured end-to-end with double encryption to ensure that all analytic insights can be created and shared with confidence. Suspicious behavior patterns can be identified with the oversight capabilities in Power BI and the Microsoft Cloud App Security Portal. Power BI is also built to meet data compliance and residency requirements both at a country and industry level.
Make use of AI
Over the past 10 years or so Microsoft has invested significant time and money into AI and machine learning. Power BI takes advantage of this investment and advances in technology to empower employees to prepare data, build machine learning models and find insights quickly and easily from large sets of data.
Integration with other applications and data sources
As Power BI is a Microsoft product it seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft products such as Dynamics 365, Excel and Azure. However, there are over 70 other connectors and integrations including Salesforce, DropBox and Google Analytics. This wide variety of data sources and integrations allows businesses to combine the analysis of data from multiple systems to provide accurate and effective data analysis.