Data Analytics & Business Intelligence

What is Data Analytics?

Data Analytics is the process of examining, organising and interpreting data to uncover information, patterns and trends that help you make better business decisions. It’s essentially how you turn numbers on a spreadsheet into tangible actions that drive results.

Whilst the idea of analysing data isn’t new (businesses have been doing it for decades - even before computers), modern data analytics really took shape in the 1950s and exploded in the 1990s as technology evolved and business intelligence tools emerged.

Today, data analytics is at the heart of pretty much every industry. It helps businesses improve efficiency, understand customer behaviour, reduce risks and indeed - identify new opportunities. 

What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence (BI) is similar to data analytics. It’s the process of collecting, analysing and visualising your business data - often through dashboards and reports - so you can make quick, informed decisions and understand your metrics at any given point in time.

BI focuses mainly on descriptive analytics which is the process of summarising historical and current data to give you a clear picture of how your business is performing right now. Data from multiple systems (CRM, finance, HR or sales platforms) is gathered into one central hub such as a data warehouse. From there, you can turn it into easy to understand reports and dashboards that present your situation in a visually appealing format.

BI can ultimately act as your business’s control centre in that it that brings all your information together so you can make evidence backed, quicked decisions.

Why use Dashboards & Reports?

Because staring at raw data isn’t exactly great fun is it? (and it's definitely not helpful).

Dashboards and reports transform your data into visual insights. They let you see real time performance, track progress and make confident decisions based on facts rather than guesswork. They can be particularly useful for individuals who absorb information through visuals rather than blocks of text or numbers.

Dashboards and reporting tools make your data:

• Accessible: Everyone can see what matters most.

• Actionable: Key metrics update live.

• Aligned: Teams work from the same source of truth.

Dashboards

Dashboards are now a staple in most businesses and for good reason. Tools such as Power BI and Tableau give you the ability to turn large volumes of complex data into clear visuals: charts, graphs, tables and interactive widgets that highlight key metrics.

They can be as simple or advanced as you need from quick overviews to interactive, multi layered analytics tools. A good dashboard makes data feel intuitive, even for your non technical users!

You can read more about the Microsoft Power Platform here.

Reporting

Reporting solutions help you create, customise, collaborate on and share reports quickly and efficiently. They allow you to extract, transform and analyse your data so that you can present it in a way that makes sense to you and your stakeholders.

Dashboards & Reports - What's the difference?

They often overlap, but there are a few key distinctions:

How can we help?

We have worked with a variety of dashboard & reporting tools for many, many years including Excel, Power BI, Tableau and in-house custom built tools. Whether you're looking for a newer solution for your existing dashboards and reports, a platform to start using dashboards and reporting or a custom built system to address specific needs relating to dashboards and reporting, we can help.

Whilst we have specific, and expansive expertise with Tableau and Power BI/Platform, we are constantly finding and learning new systems to improve the technology we can deliver to you. There is further information detailed below for the tools mentioned above but do get in touch if you want us to investigate your specific needs further.