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| Power BI - An Insight |
Power BI is
the most popular name in the business intelligence domain developed by
venerable name in the software industry the Microsoft. Initially, the tool was developed for technical
analysts and programmers but soon became accessible to decision-makers of the organization.
Big or small every business aims to
establish its brand presence in the market as well as grow exponentially. This is where the Business Intelligence tool plays
a major role in making the right decisions for the business to achieve its
objectives.
Regardless
of the size of the organization, going for a BI solution is one of the major decisions.
Typically, there are few objectives of the objectives a good BI solution is
expected to fulfill such as:
- Analytics aiding better decision making
- Improved operational efficiency
- Improved cost savings
- Increased growth in revenue
- Increased competitive advantage
- Enhanced customer service
- Compliance and risk management
Business
Intelligence tool has been a platform that was only accessible to large organizations.
However, due to the disruption of cloud technologies and SaaS model, BI implementation
is available even for smaller organizations. Power BI is a cloud-based platform and does
not require capital expenditure or inhouse IT infrastructure support. Just like any other cloud services, the
implementation of Power BI is rapid and trouble-free. In a nutshell, It is a powerful
low-cost reporting and analytics platform.
Having said
that, its vital for any organization to invest in time and effort in
understanding all aspects of BI tool before investing in one. That is exactly is the objective of this Power
BI series. Power BI is almost as simple as an excel tool with some advanced
features, however, some of its offerings may not be suitable for your unique
business requirements.
Here are the top pros and cons of Power BI.
Pro: Affordability
Hands down,
the big brand is accessible to the simplest merchant in the game. This has been
the major advantage of Power BI. Its analytical and visualizations are
affordable and are relatively inexpensive. Oh, did I mention, the Power BI desktop
version is free of cost! You can download this tool and start creating your
reports and dashboards on your computer. However, if you want to use the Power BI cloud
services and publish your reports and have additional features you can the
cloud solution for just 9.99$ a month! Its
affordable compared to other BI tools.
Con: Table Relationships
Table
relationships tend to have issues as the data size and relationship between the
data elements grow. While Power BI is
good with tables of simple relationships in the data model, it may not handle
complex relationships between tables well. Its often recommended to create a
data model with outmost care by having a more unique field so that Power BI does
not confuse the relationships when it comes to such tables.
Pro: Custom Visualizations
Custom visualizations
are created by developers for specific use for their users/decision-makers. Custom visualizations are even available in
the marketplace for you to download and use. In additional to vanilla
visualizations ( which should suffice the basic needs ) available in your Power
BI, you may use custom visualization which are suited to your specific needs,
such as KPS, Maps, Charts, Graphs, etc.
Con: Configuration of Visuals
You may not
need to configure or optimize your visuals most of the time in the Power BI. However,
if you want to, Power BI does not provide many options to configure visualization
as per your requirements. This really limits the ability of the user to change
the visuals.
Those are
pretty good starters for a conversation about Power BI implementation. To make
this article lean and easy to digest, I have split it into a series of 3 posts.
I will come back to you soon with an update on next set of Pros and Cons of Power
BI. Meanwhile, if you are looking for specific information on how Power BI
can benefit your business, feel free to contact us here.
Srivatsan Aravamudan
Solution Consultant
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