As per the information about the total amount of data created and consumed in the world, Statista claims that it reached 59 zettabytes in 2022. This shows the rapid pace of digitalization that is contributing to the volume of global data.
When we witness such voluminous data, there is a genuine requirement by companies to utilize it in getting actionable insights. These actionable insights help organizations to offer better services to customers, thereby strengthening the brand-consumer relationship. Here is where business analytics tools step in.
What are Business Analytics tools?
They are different types of application software that retrieve data from various business systems and consolidate it in a repository. This repository is called a data warehouse, which is then reviewed and analyzed to understand customers better. Any organization can use more than one business analytics tool to get a 360-degree overview of the company. It can then use the information to provide key insights into the business to make meaningful decisions.
One common question: Are BI tools and business analytics tools the same?
The answer is: NO.
Even though business intelligence tools collect data, business analytics tools go a step further to report the results retrieved from the data. They help in identifying weak spots, fix problem areas, and even forecast events and future results which gives way to organizations in achieving business goals.
Here are the top 7 business analytics tools used by companies in2023:
1. QlikView
Created by Qlik, a business analysis and software company, it launched its first product QuikView which is now known as QlikView. It is one of the most recommended tools for business analytics due to its unique features. Also, it is faster in response as compared to Tableau which we will discuss ahead.
QlikView is very easy to deploy, learn and also enables users to gain business insights by data association and what data is not related. It does not require any prior programming experience. Just the basic understanding of SQL and VB Script will come handy in getting the most out of this tool. Qlik is super supportive of the distribution of its tool by offering a free version of QlikView for personal use. This is meant for small startups or individual learners.
2. Splunk
Splunk Technology is a San Francisco based company that is well known for creating tools that handle multiple aspects of machine generated data, such as, searching, monitoring, and analyzing it. This product is called Splunk and it captures, indexes, and finds a correlation between real-time data from a searchable repository. This repository is used for generating graphs, reports, dashboards, etc.
Splunk Free is available now that includes all its Enterprise features of Splunk 4 for 2 months along with the benefit of allowing users to index 500 megabytes of data per day! It is used in small and medium scale industries.
Learn the basics of Splunk and get up and running quickly with these free splunk courses that are perfect for anyone new to Splunk or looking to get more out of their data.
3. SAS
SAS is a statistical software suite developed by the SAS Institute for data management in North Carolina for data management, advanced analytics, and predictive analytics. It now finds its wide usage in the analytics industry thanks to its robust nature and easy to learn methodologies.
This top of the line business analytics tool simplifies the process of analyzing large data sets in real time. Its high-end platform allows users to convert raw data into meaningful information which can help in drawing relevant insights. Over the span of a few years, SAS has added more modules to derive the best results for SAS analytics useful for IoT, SAS anti-money laundering, and more.
4. Excel
Now, this might come as a surprise to many. Yes, Excel is one of the least costly and widely used data analytics tools all over the world.
Even if you are an expert in SAS or Tableau, the usage of Excel is imperative. It becomes even more important when there is a requirement of analytics on client’s internal data. Here, Excel does the complex task of summarizing the data with a preview of pivot tables that help in data filtering based on the client’s requirements. Excel has advanced business analytics options that aid in modelling capabilities that have pre-built options like time grouping and automatic relationship detection.
5. Tableau Public
This is a free, easy to learn software that can connect any data source and create data visualizations, maps and dashboards with real-time updates for the web. These creations can then be shared across social media or with the client. It is a free version of Tableau Visualization software.
Tableau Public allows you to access and download files in different formats. And here comes the best part: even non-technical users can use Tableau Public. This is definitely one of the top business analytics tools in the industry today. If you want to witness the real power of this tool, you must have a very good data source. Its capability to work on big data makes it an even more essential business analytics tool in the market.
6. RapidMiner
RapidMiner is a powerful data science platform developed by the company of the same name. RapidMiner is famous for performing predictive analysis and advanced analytics such as data mining, machine learning and visual analytics. You need no prior understanding of programming to use this tool.
It can be incorporated with any type of data source: Access, Excel, Tera data, Sybase, Oracle, IBM SPSS, etc. This is a very powerful tool which helps you in controlling the formats and data sets for predictive analysis. It includes a free trial for its users to assess its capabilities.
7. MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy is a business analytics platform that integrates superior analytics capabilities that can allow smooth processing of unstructured text data. This unstructured data can be further analyzed with MicroStrategy’s text analytics solutions.
This is one of the top business analytics tools which offers data discovery, data visualizations, flat files, web services and also hosts other sources to fetch data for analysis. Operating this tool requires a basic understanding of programming, data analysis, and SQL. This top-notch business analytics tool combines a range of business analysis tools and techniques, allowing the user to create and share reports from any location or device.
Conclusion
In today’s business environment, decisions are made on precision and accuracy rather than mere guesswork. Hence, it becomes important to make proper use of the data by choosing the right business analytics tool for your organization. This is why we curated the list of the top 7 business analytics tools that are used by companies in 2022.
Which of the business analytics tools did you find the most interesting? I am sure if you are a tech enthusiast, you cannot wait to try your hands on these tools.
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