What is the best BI-tool?
What is ThoughtSpot?
14/09/2020
What is BI anyway?
29/09/2020
And for the last time: Welcome back to our BI- Series!
In case you missed it, we embarked on a journey a few weeks ago in which we glanced at four of the most prominent BI-tools in the current market. One by one we took a look at the vendors crowned as leaders in the latest report from Gartner, the
Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms :
Power BI, Tableau, Qlik Sense and ThoughtSpot.
Now that you have a general idea about these tools and what they can do, we will wrap up the series by briefly comparing them and giving you our own conclusions.
Let's start!
So what is the best BI-tool?
Let’s start by saying that there is no correct answer to that question, everybody will prefer one or the other for some personal reasons but more importantly, these four were named “leaders” for a reason. These are all incredible. And as you may have noticed, the differences between them are not extremely easy to point out on a first scan, they are all top performers and fulfill their promises.
Given that all 4 are outstanding analytics and visualization tools our first and probably most important recommendation is:
- Identify if your company has very specific needs. This could mean different things, but some examples could be the need to deal with immense amounts of data or having to connect to a particular data source. The number of employees that should have access to the tool, and what they should be able to do with it, etc. Once you know your individual requirements you can look specifically for a tool that can deliver that. This may sound obvious but doing this will definitely make your life a lot easier.
Having said that there are some features and characteristics that we think are worth mentioning:
First: If your employees are not specifically trained to do data analysis and reports, Power BI has the following advantages:
- The crazy affordable prices will allow you to make a small investment with a huge scalability potential. Let’s remember that Power BI is the most budget-friendly tool of the series.
- The easy learning curve. This one is without a doubt an important one when it comes to business that is first starting to step up their data analysis and BI game. The simplicity of the interface results in the positive response of most users and could play a key role when it comes to keeping the motivation of your employees alive.
“The simplest to use tool among the leading BI vendors” by Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platform (2018). - AppSource from Microsoft. Just like Google has “Google Play” and Apple has the “App Store”, AppSource is the relatively new marketplace from Microsoft. In there you can find all kinds of add-ons, extensions, or single feature apps for any of the Microsoft products like Power-BI as well as “Solution apps” or SaaS that cover much more. This is a great advantage for Power-BI users giving them an entire platform to look for and purchase enhancing apps that facilitate their work with just a few clicks.
- Users report that working with the tool is very intuitive and user-friendly which means that starting to use its basic functions feels almost natural and won't scare off your employees.
- Creating Data-Models is easy and quick, speeding up daily work. Converting data also adds to this, being another task that is easy to perform with this tool.
- And lastly, filtering with Qlik Sense is different from other tools, since it shows them all in one place, making it faster and easier, and sometimes even sparking up some new ideas that turn into insights by having them all available and without having to spend extra time filtering different ways.
And second: Qlik is known for keeping its users happy and having a really helpful community, which plays a big role when it comes to quickly solve small doubts or questions. Moreover:
It has been a blast venturing into the Business Intelligence World, which is an essential part of the digital transformation. Like always, remember to take our advice with a grain of salt and always consider your business's characteristics and needs!
Stay tuned for more on this and many other interesting topics to level up your business!
Until the next time,
Your Statistance team!
