Microsoft Power BI 

The Self-service Business Intelligence suite

   As a B.I. practitioner, I always thought that there is enough written and video material on BI available on net and people know about this.

   I became a trainer for Power BI recently and realized that there is still some gap in what people actually need and what is available out there. Hence this is a humble attempt to clear some concepts in an easy to understand and bit size pieces.

What is Business Intelligence

  Enough has been written about the enormous amount of data being generated and how it is the "new oil". I see it is as air present everywhere but useful only because of our lungs which can absorb the oxygen out of it and our heart which can make it reach to the parts of our body.

  An analytics system works like lungs and heart which fetches the data, cleans and make it reach the target audience for meaningful utilization.

 Business Intelligence is an analytics system which is supposed focuses on the business problem. Nevertheless, it can be used for a whole lot of other problems limited to our imagination.

What is Self-service B.I.

   Self-service B.I. is a B.I. system which does not need the involvement of organization's I.T. guys or consultants to analyze the data. With some amount of knowledge, you can put it to use quickly and effectively. 

Which Self-service B.I. tools are available in the market 

   Right now the user is spoilt with options available in the market and the new ones are coming out every few days. While this a an advantageous situation for the user, it poses a challenge to select the right product for your application.

   The most popular B.I. systems are
1. Tableau
2. Microsoft Power BI
3. Qlik
4. Sisense
5. Klipfolio

What is Power B.I. 

  Power B.I. is a product from Microsoft and is gaining popularity fast due to following differentiators:

1. User-friendly interface - a first look will give you the comfort of being close to excel.

2. Free of cost desktop version - you can do almost everything (except sharing dashboard with others) in the free version. This is really great!

3. Low cost - It costs only USD 9.99 / user/ month which is one of the lowest for such an amazing tool.

4. Monthly update - I love this feature. Microsoft team listens to the user and comes out with cool updates every month based on the feedback of users.

   This was a brief intro about Business Intelligence and Power BI. I will expand this topic further in my future blogs. Do let me know your views on this and also share any related topic which you want me to cover.