An increasing number of businesses use BI to keep track of their business activities and monetary performance. BI tools allow any business to make decisions faster and boost communication within your organization. But, you might have this question, “is Power BI easy to learn?” Yes, as it offers easy and intuitive features and doesn’t need any coding skills.
If you have started using Power BI and are not sure how to leverage this technology in your organization, read shred. In this article, we will explain how to maximize your ROI by leveraging Power BI.
Contents
What is BI (Business Intelligence)?
Before explaining Power BI, let’s understand the basics of Business Intelligence. Business Intelligence is a process of analyzing and converting raw data into actionable information to analyze business operations. It helps in the right decision-making. This technology makes it possible to manage and organize unmanageable data into managed streams.
What is Power BI?
Power Business Intelligence is the newest tool provided by Microsoft, offering several features such as reports, dashboards, analysis, and many more. You can manage a huge amount of data by leveraging this tool. With Power BI, you can create your own dashboard or build a custom report. This tool is a collection of software, apps, and connectors to convert raw data into interactive insights.
Power BI is also known as Power BI Desktop, or mobile Power BI app on a Windows OS device and for iOS and Android devices.
8 Components of Power Business Intelligence
Power BI has numerous components which have been highlighted in the following list.
1. Power Query
Power Query, a powerful data transformation engine, reads data from databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL. This feature offers a powerful GUI to transform data based on your requirements.
2. Power Pivot
Power Pivot, an-memory data modeling engine, offers response and allows users to create the star schema and relationships. This component leverages DAX language for business operations.
3. Power View
This is one of the most interactive data visualization components that connect to the data sources and collects metadata for data analysis. Power View offers the data filter options based on the visualization.
4. Power Map
Highlighting data based on the location is an important component needed to understand the data. This feature offers visualizations in 3D format.
5. Power BI Desktop
This is another important component for data analysis and BI reports. Users will not be able to do any customizations to meet their business requirements without Power BI Desktop.
6. Power BI Website
Power BI website is one of the notable features of Power BI. Users can publish the Power BI website by creating dashboards, refreshing the data sources, and transforming data.
7. Power Questions and Answers
Users can ask questions and analyze without expert support. They need to follow specific guidelines to create the data model to answer their questions in the best possible way.
8. Power BI Mobile Applications
Mobile is one of the most accessible interfaces for every user. So, it is advisable to create reports for viewing on mobile with ease. Power Business Intelligence has mobile applications for Android, Windows, and iOS. The important components of Power BI are Power BI Desktop, Power BI Mobile Applications, and Power BI Service.
5 Benefits of Power BI For Your Business
1. Visualization Capabilities
Power BI offers updated visualizations. Its Q&A feature also allows users to generate charts and graphs based on data. This tool can provide you with out-of-the-box visuals.
2. Data Sources Integration
Microsoft offers several solutions for data source integration. Users can connect to a wide range of data sources such as OLAP, SQL Server, SAP, and flat files. This tool defines the relationships while extracting data from multiple data sources and the cloud.
3. Ease of Learning
The learning curve is simple with the Power BI interface for beginners as well as experienced users. This tool offers simple functionalities to use.
4. Community Support
You can find a solid community for Power BI like all other Microsoft solutions. Its Knowledge base is vast and consists of support documents for regular upgrades.
5. Empowering Small Businesses
Considered a leader by Gartner and Forrester, Power BI is popular for its agility. Easily integrated into the cloud, multiple connectors and simple components like Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power Maps prove that Power BI for small businesses is very cost-effective. Furthermore, data visualization is easy with multiple report formats and effective KPIs to monitor business performance and create scorecards.
6 Ways to Leverage Power BI Training to Maximize Your ROI
1. Align Your Business Strategy with Your BI Tool
Running in the wrong direction can affect your business. The same thing happens when an organization tries to implement BI without planning a clear business strategy. It is important to understand your business goals before leveraging BI. To achieve greater ROI, your company needs to guide its team.
2. Build a Road Map
To boost ROI and efficiency, it is advisable to follow the right process. Creating a detailed roadmap enables management to check the things happening in the initial phase and analyze what will happen in the coming phases. This helps you create a thoughtful design for later project phases. You should consider the end and work backward to achieve the desired results.
3. Boost a Broad Enterprise BI Platform Using Niche Tools
Using the general tools in the BI program will not fulfill your organization’s requirements. With enterprise Business Intelligence, the best thing you can do is to fulfill the needs of people. The best niche tools allow analysts to consider driving value, offering exceptional ROI.
4. Establish BI Governance
To reap the benefits of the BI program, begin with executive ownership. Your executives must align BI goals with a powerful strategy and take ownership of the success of BI initiatives. Executives must take responsibility to run day-to-day business operations. Within the structure of governance, data governance consists of policies, processes, and practices to ensure the reliability and security of business information. Usability is also important as users should be able to access the business data.
5. Figure the Schedule For Report Development
The best thing you can do for report development is to develop in Power BI Desktop. Make sure that you are clear about your report development cadence, how to control reports, how to edit reports, and how to communicate this process within the organization.
6. Provide Users With Clear Guidelines
Whenever a person prepares a report, analyzes business data, or takes any necessary action using company resources for Power BI, that person is making an investment decision for the company. That investment is approved by top-performing BI organizations and an appropriate governance structure. This doesn’t need authorization for every action. Clear communication and documented BI practices are required to institutionalize empowerment.
Final Words
Rushing to implement a BI tool to collect important business data without a powerful strategy can lead to an inefficient system. We have already discussed how to leverage the BI tool to boost your ROI. If you’re planning to maximize your ROI, it’s high time to follow the above-mentioned ways while leveraging BI.