Business Intelligence Skills: Exploring Tools You Should Learn

London School of Emerging Technology > Business Analyst Course > Business Intelligence Skills: Exploring Tools You Should Learn
Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence has found its way into the decision-making processes of most organisations in industries. Companies relying on data for their organisational strategies require exponentially more professionals with skills in BI tools. For any student interested in a career in data analysis, business analytics, or even management, mastering the right BI tool is a must. The BI tool landscape continues to evolve continuously throughout 2024, embracing more features, better user interfaces and more elevated capabilities. In this blog, let’s look at some of the best BI tools that every student should learn to stay ahead in the current wave of employment competition. There are many tools available for BI professionals, but some of the prominent ones that need to be addressed are:

Power BI

One of the main BI tools being used today is Power BI by Microsoft. It has a user-friendly interface and the credibility of other related Microsoft products makes it popular with both businesses and students. With Power BI, one can easily create interactive visualisations, reports and dashboards to track key performance metrics.

Features of Power BI:

Excel Integrated: Power BI interfaces amazingly well with Microsoft’s flagship application, Excel, allowing the user to convert data into marvellous visualisation.

Ease of use: A drag-and-drop interface means beginners can start building reports with minimal technical knowledge.

Cloud-Based access: Power BI is accessed easily by cloud base, and reports are shared from everywhere.

Tableau

It is one of the strongest data visualisation tools around, allowing users to create rich and attractive dashboards that can be shared on all types of devices. It remains one of the go-to options for aspiring data analysts to fall back upon, mainly because it supports large datasets and works well with multiple sources of data.

Features of Tableau:

Advanced Data Visualisation: Tableau is fantastic for visualising complex datasets in an easy-to-understand format.

It has an intuitive interface: Like Power BI, Tableau has an easy interface which is why anybody, including the most inexperienced student, can use Tableau.

Data Source Integration: Tableau creates connectivity with a variety of data sources, such as cloud services, databases and even spreadsheets.

Google Data Studio

Although it is a business intelligence tool, it provides raw data analysis and enables users to create and share reports and dashboards, which is a free tool by Google. It is highly recommended for learners in school since it is compatible with other Google apps like Google Analytics, Google Sheets, Google Ads, etc.

Features of  Google Data Studio:

Free access: Google Data Studio is free and, hence, a good option for students who have limited budgets.

Google Ecosystem: It is part of the same family as Google and integrates well with Google services in a number of industries using that enterprise’s ecosystem.

Collaboration: It supports real-time collaboration, meaning that it allows teams or students to work on the same report at the same time.

Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense provides a powerful BI platform with an associative data model that gives people a free path to look at the data from different angles and deep down their insights. It is also popular as it can self-service and allows users to make reports and dashboards on their own without much IT dependency.

Features of Qlik Sense:

Associative Model: Unlike the traditional query-based tools, Qlik Sense has given an associative model that allows free exploration of data without any kind of restrictions to specific predefined paths.

AI-Powered Insights: Qlik sense comes with AI-powered insights through which anyone can easily trace the patterns and trends of big data.

Scalability: The Qlik Sense tool processes large amounts of data, which is therefore suitable for students interested in working with big data.

SAP BusinessObjects

SAP BusinessObjects is a comprehensive BI suite of applications for large enterprises. It delivers comprehensive reporting and analysis capabilities, all directly integrated into an enterprise resource planning system through SAP. For those students who wish to join large organisations and work with complex BI solutions, it’s very important to know SAP BusinessObjects.

Features of  SAP BusinessObjects:

Enterprise BI: Most senior students will likely have to work at a company that has numerous installations of SAP BusinessObjects, so it is quite an important skill for the working world.

Advanced Analytics: It has deeper insight through complex analytics and reporting capabilities.

Integration with SAP ERP: This would be beyond the benefit of the students who intend to work in industries using SAP’s ERP systems.

IBM Cognos Analytics

IBM Cognos Analytics is yet another very significant player in the BI market. It provides a comprehensive reporting, dashboarding, and data visualisation platform with strong AI backing from IBM. For anyone interested in AI and BI, mastering Cognos is an essential tool.

Features of IBM Cognos:

AI-Powered Data Exploration: Cognos blends data discovery with AI to assist users in discovering unknown relationships and trends in their data.

Custom Reports: All such high degrees of flexibility can be used by the user to create reports and dashboards to make highly customised reports.

Scalable: This tool is meant for businesses of all sizes; therefore, the learner students of this tool can apply it to many career paths.

Looker

Looker has advanced BI features focused on data exploration and collaboration. The deepest feature can be explored, and to acquire this, a user must report and create custom dashboards shareable for teams. Deep integration with Google Cloud attracts more small businesses and large businesses.

Features of  Looker:

Cloud Integration: Looker’s direct integration with Google Cloud has placed it in a key location as far as cloud-based BI solutions are concerned.

Data Exploration: Its model only allows interaction with data and enables users to discover actionable insights dynamically.

Collaboration: Looker allows team collaboration and sharing and, hence, can be a great tool for modern workplaces.

Domo

Domo is a cloud-based BI platform that makes data accessible to all people within an organisation. This product has real-time visualisations, and it enables the user to build interactive dashboards. Domo is a good choice for a student interested in the business of data analysis because of its emphasis on collaboration and ease of use.

Features of  Domo:

Real-Time Data: Domo has the most fundamental feature of real-time data, which helps businesses make decisions at the right time.

Collaboration uses: It offers collaboration features since Domo enables interaction among many users working together in data visualisations.

Mobile-First Approach: Domo’s user-friendly interface is perfect for users on the go who need real-time data at their fingertips.

Future of BI Tools

As BI continues to advance, AI, machine learning, and automation will naturally become part of the BI tools. In terms of future prospects, BI tools will include more predictive analytics, friendlier interfaces and smoother integration with cloud platforms. Understanding foundational tools like Power BI, Tableau or Google Data Studio should set students off well to master higher-level tools and concepts as the field matures.

Conclusion

BI tools are no longer a preserve of analysts or data scientists but a must-learn tool for a student who wants to make a mark in the business, IT, or management world. Top BI tools will hone technical skills and, above all, help implement relevant data-driven decisions, which are assets profoundly needed by the job market today. That’s why the London School of Emerging Technology (LSET) brings you a dedicated course on Business Intelligence where you can learn industry-standard tools and skills and make use of them in your career growth. Not only that, LSET brings you an internship program this month, which can benefit students with the upper hand in their career journey. 

FAQs

How is LSET’s internship program helpful for scholars who are new to the BI field?

Basically, the business intelligence field needs a professional approach as it is an essential role in an organisation, and decision-making is based on it. Internships can provide extensive experience and a deep understanding of the skills and knowledge.

What are the topics that the LSET BI course provides?

With LSET’s BI courses, you can find many industry standard topics and implementations that are important for your BI career, like Data Science Fundamentals, Database Theory, SQL, Tableau and other tools, Data Visualisation, Agile Project Management and many more.

Which BI tool is most suitable for data visualisation?

Tableau is one of the strong functionalities well known all over the world, especially in data visualisation. You can learn practical information about Tableau through LSET’s course.

What are the BI professional hardware and software career options?

BI Analysts, Data Analysts, Data Scientists and Business Analysts are some of the jobs that come with them. These are the prominent careers which are in demand and can be learned with practical application.

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