Never before has there been so much data being generated on a daily basis by businesses. From how leads are getting to your website to how fast your suppliers fill an order, your data offers nuggets of insight that can help you make your business better.

But, how do you capture all that data and make sense of it? It’s easy to get overwhelmed with spreadsheet after spreadsheet trying to connect the dots and make sense of everything. But there is a better way to read that data and make actionable decisions based upon it.

One of the top software recommendations when it comes to data visualization is Microsoft Power BI.

The “BI” stands for Business Intelligence and that’s what this powerful tool is designed for. It gathers data, analyzes it, and presents it in stunning visuals created to make the data easy to understand and offer important business insights.

Companies that use business analytics are 5x more likely to make faster decisions.  

Let’s explore how Microsoft Power BI works and that types of benefits you can expect from this application.

Make Better Decisions with Business Analytics

Say you are tracking your leads coming in from two new online advertising campaigns. You look at a spreadsheet graph and see that campaign 1 is driving three times as many leads as campaign 2. So, you decide to move more of your budget to the higher performing campaign.

Sales start to dip, and you can’t figure out why.

You connect a business intelligence dashboard to multiple data points, and now you see a visualization that shows you that even though campaign 1 drives more leads, campaign 2’s leads purchased more often and brought in four times more sales dollars than campaign 1. Hence, the drop in sales when you put more of your budget on the campaign you thought was performing better. (It was, but in only one data point).

That’s just one example of how connecting multiple data points from your business through a BI dashboard can help you gain the insights you need in order to make better decisions.

How Does Microsoft Power BI Work?

Power BI has three main functions wrapped up into a powerful data intelligence dashboard.

1. It allows you to connect to your data, wherever it may be coming from, and use data from multiple sources to create comprehensive visualizations of that information.
2. It gives you the ability to publish reports, collaborate with others and share insights from your data both inside and outside your organization.
3. It’s a cloud-based infrastructure that you can access from anywhere on both desktop and mobile devices.

Harness Your Data and Gain a Competitive Edge

When it comes to any business decision about technology, a few key drivers are whether or not it’s going to benefit your bottom line and how easy it will be to adopt.

Here are some of the ways what Microsoft Power BI and data analytics can help you get ahead without disrupting your productivity with a huge learning curve.

Acquire More Customers

Because of the ability to gain insights into the customer experience by analyzing your business data, you can improve your customer acquisition and retention. Here are a few statistics from MicroStrategy that illustrate the point:

• Data-driven organizations are 23x more likely to acquire customers
• Data-driven organizations are 6x more likely to retain customers

Integration with Excel

If you’re used to using Excel for much of your data collection, you don’t have to worry that you’ll have to completely change your workflow when you integrate Microsoft Power BI. The software integrates completely with Excel, so any data queries, models, and reports you’ve made in Excel can transfer to Power BI’s interactive dashboard.

Personalized Dashboards

You’re not stuck with only standardized reports, unable to get the data visualization you want. Microsoft Power Bi has personalized dashboards that are completely customizable. Put your data together in whatever way you like to gain the deep views into your business that you need.

User Friendly

You don’t need to have your own IT person on staff to use Microsoft Power BI. The program is designed to be user friendly with a powerful, yet simple interface. It supports a natural language interface with reporting visuals meant to inform in a glance.

You can create reports in minutes by drag-and-drop, meaning you won’t have to spend hours trying to get the data in the format you want.

Get Fresh Data

Power Bi is designed to automate reporting as much as possible, so you can refresh the data connections to your desired timeframe (even hourly!). This can help you make even more timely decisions and keep an eye on your day-to-day operations in a whole new way.

Would You Like to See Microsoft Power BI in Action?

If you’d like to see Microsoft Power BI’s data visualization and drag and drop interface, Neuron Computers can give you a demonstration! Our team can also connect your data sources and help you with a custom set up so you can gain valuable insights right away.

Schedule your Microsoft Power BI consultation today! Call 1-833-4-NEURON or reach out online.