Business Intelligence Systems

BI systems are changing as a result of cloud, open integration via APIs, digital transformation programmes and the rise of mobile. As data and information become more central to all businesses, the insight provided by BI systems has become essential to a broader range of job roles, meaning that the hard-to-use solutions of previous times are no longer acceptable.

In the modern era users expect to be able to drill down into data without having first to learn to write queries or scripts. This democratisation process has led to increased emphasis on the front-end, with a variety of dashboards and other data visualisation tools now an essential part of every modern BI system. Interactive reporting can allow sales managers and others to interrogate data, and geospatial capabilities quickly highlight regions or premises that might be under-or over-performing.

The report examines how Microsoft’s Power BI is disrupting the decade-long dominance of Qlik and Tableau in the arena of self-service analytics, and looks at the many new cloud-first players on the scene.

Offerings from Microsoft, Tableau, Qlik, Salesforce, SAP, Oracle and IBM are analysed in depth, while those vendors with a smaller user base are profiled with details of support, pricing and user opinions included.

This report covers the following areas:

• How end-users choose and use business intelligence tools in a modern setting, including the most important features to look for and critical functionality.
• Analysis of key industry trends and challenges, such as the need to deploy multiple solutions and business processes that could affect the choice of tools.
• Deep dives on the big players in the market – not based on marketing spend, but on actual feedback from UK IT leaders.

Table of contents

  Become a member today

Actionable advice from Computing’s industry experts and community, saving you time and money