Top 5 Business Analytics Tools for Startups

Business intelligence (BI) tools are software applications that take unstructured data from a variety of sources, prepare it for analysis, analyze it, and present insights in an understandable format, such as dashboards, visuals, and other reports. 

 

BI tools make it simple to query your organization's data, allowing your teams to gain valuable business insights. These insights can improve operational efficiency, allow for faster and better business decisions, assist in the removal of operational bottlenecks, and ultimately drive revenue. 

 

Guide to Business Analytics

 

Business analytics tools are applications that retrieve data from one or more business systems and store it in a repository, such as a data warehouse, for review and analysis. Most businesses use multiple analytics tools, such as spreadsheets with statistical functions, statistical software packages, sophisticated data mining tools, and predictive modeling tools. 

 

Together, these business analytics tools provide the organization with a complete overview of the company in order to provide key insights and understanding of the business so that smarter decisions about business operations, customer conversions, and more can be made.

 

Business analysts use a variety of application software to capture quantitative and qualitative data from various business systems and store it in a repository. Analysts can then review and analyze the data to make better decisions.

 

Most businesses use a combination of business analytics software, such as statistical tools, predictive modeling, and data mining tools. These business analytics software applications provide organizations with a comprehensive view of key insights that improve efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

 

While business intelligence tools collect and display aggregate data, business analytics tools go a step further to explain why the results occurred to help identify weaknesses, fix potential problem areas, alert decision makers to unforeseen events, and even forecast future results based on decisions the company may make. This provides organizations with the knowledge and confidence they need to achieve business objectives, remain competitive, and increase overall customer satisfaction.

 

Benefits of Business Analysis

 

Understanding all of the different parts of a business and how they fit together is the goal of business analysis. This data can then be used to make informed decisions about where the company should go next.

 

There are numerous approaches to business analysis. Some companies employ full-time business analysts, while others rely on software tools. Business analysis, no matter how you do it, can be a valuable exercise for any startup. But wait, there's more. There are numerous benefits to using business analytics, and we're going to highlight a few of the most important ones.

 

1. Informed Decision-Making

 

When it comes to making important strategic decisions, business analytics can be a valuable resource.

 

When Uber upgraded its Customer Obsession Ticket Assistant (COTA) in early 2018, a tool that uses machine learning and natural language processing to help agents improve speed and accuracy when responding to support tickets, it used prescriptive analytics to see if the new iteration would be more effective than the previous version.

 

2. Greater customer satisfaction

 

Another advantage of conducting a business analysis is that it can assist you in increasing customer satisfaction. You will be able to design products and services that your customers will enjoy if you better understand them. And satisfied customers are more likely to return and buy from you in the future.

 

3. Greater Revenue

 

Companies that embrace data and analytics initiatives can see significant financial returns. According to McKinsey research, organizations that invest in big data see a six percent average increase in profits, which jumps to nine percent for five-year investments.

 

4. Greater operational efficiency

 

Analytics can be used to improve business processes and operations in addition to financial gains. According to a recent KPMG report on emerging infrastructure trends, many companies are now using predictive analytics to anticipate maintenance and operational issues before they become larger problems. A surveyed mobile network operator stated that it uses data to predict outages seven days in advance. Armed with this knowledge, the company can avoid outages by better timing maintenance, allowing it to not only save money on operational costs but also keep assets performing at peak levels.

 

Also Read | Business Analytics Process: A Comprehensive Guide

 

Top 5 Tools for Business Analytics

 

If you want to work as a beginner business analyst for a large corporation, they may already have one or more BI tools. You will have to learn those tools in that case. But first, make sure you understand SQL; all business intelligence tools use SQL in some way. 

 

You should also understand what each type of data visualization does and when to use it. You'll have a solid foundation to learn any of the tools on our list below if you have these SQL and basic data visualization skills.

 

1. Altair 

 

Altair provides a data analytics platform that is open, scalable, unified, and extensible, with integrated data transformation and predictive analytics tools. Altair Monarch provides desktop-based data preparation, whereas Knowledge Hub provides team-driven data preparation and a centralized data marketplace to improve collaboration and governance. 

 

Knowledge Studio now includes machine learning and predictive analytics. Altair Panopticon is where the company's streaming processing and real-time visualization capabilities are housed.

 

2. Microsoft PowerBI

 

If you like Microsoft and want to get the most bang for your buck, try Microsoft Power BI for your data analysis and visualization needs. Power BI has an excellent Windows app that easily connects to the Microsoft 365 suite. It's backed by a BI powerhouse; in fact, Gartner ranks Microsoft first in its Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI platforms: The basic desktop version of this app is free, but the pro version costs $9.99 per user per month, and the premium subscription costs even more.

 

3. Board 

 

BOARD is a platform that combines business intelligence, performance management, and predictive analytics. As a result, any modification to data, data models, security profiles, or business rules is instantly propagated to all applications. All of the tools needed to create and update databases, data presentations, analyses, and process models are included in the solution. BOARD Cloud, a SaaS version of the platform powered by Microsoft Azure, is also available from the company.

 

4.  Tableau 

 

Tableau is one of the most popular data visualization tools on the market. It is not only fast, but it also has several features for connecting to various types of data sources. You can get data from anywhere, including Excel files, databases, Hadoop, and the Cloud.

 

In terms of usability, I rate Tableau higher than PowerBI. To obtain data for your visualizations, you can create custom SQL queries within Tableau. It is simple to create custom dashboards; even non-developers can easily write formulas and generate real-time graphs and dashboards.

 

5. Domo 

 

Domo is a mobile-first, cloud-based BI platform that helps businesses gain more value from their data by assisting organizations in better integrating, interpreting, and using data to drive timely decision-making and action across the business. The Domo platform complements existing data warehouse and BI tools by allowing users to create custom apps, automate data pipelines, and make data science accessible to anyone across the organization via automated insights that can be easily shared with internal or external stakeholders.

 

Future Recommendations

 

Business analytics has grown dramatically in recent years, but the field is not new. For decades, businesses have been analyzing information and data (mostly financial reports). What has altered? Data has increased dramatically as a result of the development of data systems, data warehouses, enterprise resource planning software, business intelligence (BI) tools, Cloud adoption, and the introduction of social media. This information can be used to generate insights worth millions of dollars. Such insights can sometimes be the sole source of a company's competitive advantage.

 

Business intelligence (BI) tools are gaining popularity and will become more self-sufficient. The market for self-service BI tools is expected to reach $14.19 billion by 2026, according to Allied Market Research.

 

Cloud adoption for data will increase as business data grows. Decision intelligence will be a continuing trend, enabling organizations to gain insights from existing data. Data quality management will be a growing trend in managing the quality of data for business data purposes as the volume of data increases. Data governance and security will be an ongoing trend as large data sets are produced and customer data is secured.

 

Also Read | Importance Of Data Analysis In Business Analytics