Data collection is riddled with inefficiencies, and data reporting and forecasting—which actually helps the right people make decisions—is often difficult to accomplish.
With the help of Microsoft Power Business Intelligence, you will be able to improve your data reporting and help facilitate appropriate integration with other Microsoft products. Before you make a switch, it’s imperative to know why you should choose Power BI for your data analytics, what to expect from the Power BI interface, and how Power BI integrates with other key Microsoft products to provide you with a seamless data collection, analysis, and communications process.
Why Power BI?
Quite simply, Microsoft Power BI is the most robust and comprehensive business analytics tool on the market. It provides interactive data visualizations and business intelligence capabilities, while having a simple enough interface for end users to create their own reports and dashboards. Power BI provides the answers CFOs need to effectively tell the story of where the company is and where it’s going. The powerful analytical insights provided by Power BI lead to actionable goal setting for key stakeholders.
Five Essentials of Power BI Desktop
Power BI provides a comprehensive set of tools and functionality for CFOs and other C-suite leaders to analyze and visualize enterprise data from a variety of sources. With Power BI, you will be able to:
- Upload data from wherever it lives. Your pile of print-outs and desktop full of files and folders will be a thing of the past. Power BI collates it all through the Azure Purview interface. (More on this feature below.)
- Prepare data yourself. Using the self-service Power Query functionality with which millions of Excel users are already familiar, business analysts can absorb, translate, incorporate, and amplify big data directly.
- Explore data efficiently. Sometimes, data can be so unwieldy that even the process of going through it all can take hours. Power BI possesses AI-driven analytics that allow you to easily explore enterprise data and help you to automatically find patterns within that data.
- Create visual data analytics. Power BI will save you hours with optimized tools to visualize your findings into interactive dashboards.
- Design data reports. You may be a “numbers person” who needs help making the data readable and actionable for others. Power BI has hundreds of report themes, layouts, and preset formats that empower you to make your data as visually appealing and readable as possible.
Perhaps most important, Power BI doesn’t require users to have coding knowledge to produce reports. Once incorporated into your data landscape, Power BI offers a user-friendly interface that a variety of end users can employ effectively for business insights and strategic decision making.
Power BI in the Overall Data Landscape
Power BI is the middle step in your company’s overall data communication process. The integration of Power BI with other Microsoft Office 365 products, including the Azure cloud platform and Microsoft Teams, is a critical factor in Power BI’s overall success as a data analytics tool.
With Azure Purview and Power BI improved integration, you can effectively collect your enterprise data from wherever it may be. Using AI capabilities, Azure collects from hundreds of supported on-premises and cloud-based sources, such as Dynamics 365, Salesforce, SQL database, Excel, and SharePoint. Azure efficiently aggregates your company’s data for you and allows CFOs or other C-suite leaders to pull the data they need to analyze and report out.
At the other end of the data funnel, Power BI reports out and connects effortlessly through Microsoft Teams, making the data accessible to all requisite stakeholders and teams.You can incorporate Power BI data reporting in chats, meetings, calendar invites, and team channels, empowering data-driven collaboration, meaningful insights, and action plans for your company.
Final Thoughts
Today’s data landscape is increasingly complex, and understanding this complexity is critical to your company’s enduring success. For many CFOs and C-suite leaders, big data can feel necessary and intimidating all at the same time.
Aerie can assist you in creating a data governance framework and developing a system for actionable data consumption and analysis with Power Business Intelligence and other applications in the Microsoft ecosystem.
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