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Don’t you think the world where we do business changed exponentially, and it’s evolving drastically at every single second? Today in this highly competitive eCommerce and digital world, businesses have learned various ways of harnessing the true power of data and information to stay ahead. Increasing adoption of cloud computing and the environment to support cloud based business intelligence solutions has indeed accelerated demand for technology leaders in BI solutions, to help online stores thrive and perform opportunity mapping in real-time ensuring the confidentiality of the data and information.
It is interesting to learn what is cloud BI and how it can help businesses gain competitive advantage in today’s challenging environment. Let’s take a look.
WHAT IS CLOUD BI?
Cloud BI has its origin from the 1950s where we developed microchips and the mainframe computers to promote efficient use of Central Processing Unit (CPU) resources, the practice of multi-tenancy, and time-sharing for better & quick accessibility. The world of intelligence is changing drastically every single moment, and for businesses, it’s becoming critical to find a trusted BI solution partner to achieve their evolving goals and leverage incredible business insights. Cloud BI unleashes a process that transforms data into actionable insights either partially or fully within a cloud environment. With the appropriate cloud BI solution, businesses can reduce the risk of failure in real-time and ensure quality insights driven by accurate data to stay ahead of competition.
Key Advantages:
Accessibility
The cloud Business Intelligence tool allows users to access reports and dashboards at any time from anywhere using different types of devices. The cloud BI tools will also help the users to build insights into various business KPIs and important data points in a web-based application. A cloud BI tool enables anyone involved in the business process to analyze and visualize company data and share the analytical results via smart dashboarding/reporting with key stakeholders and other persons of interest.
Easy Data integration
Cloud BI tool empowers businesses to integrate with various data sources and enables easy cross-location data sharing capabilities with smart data connectors. These tools also facilitate features to visualize data in real-time by making it easier for you to execute your own data analysis. The analysis or the results produced can be used to improve business performance and identify current industry trends.
Budget-friendly
Servers, machines, hardware, and resources from the IT department are significantly reduced, since cloud BI software/solution offers subscription-based options that make the costs predictable, while additional features can be subscribed for additional cost. Users can take full advantage of the Cloud BI tools with an availability to sign up for a free trial and customize subscription based on your needs. The online nature of cloud BI solutions also makes them more affordable since no expensive installation or maintenance fees are required upfront. The providers ensure the platforms are always upgraded and kept onto their best at all times.
Data distribution
With a proper cloud BI solution, businesses can ensure that data can be accessed from any device and web browser, including mobile apps with simple-to-use sharing options, which can be employed even during out-of-office times. Additional development of infrastructure is not required to access reports and dashboards while using cloud BI solutions.
Information accuracy
Cloud BI tools also ensure the accuracy of information as it enhances the trustworthiness of the data storage from multiple sources in real-time. The rapid data-processing offered by cloud BI tools are too precise without the information being lost, overlooked, or stayed untapped. Being more reliable and secured, cloud BI solutions are the best suitable options for disaster recovery and business continuity from anywhere at any time for businesses looking to gain a competitive edge.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive Analytics consumes huge amounts of data gathered on a daily basis from different data sources to analyze the data obtained and make predictions about the future by using data mining techniques, statistical algorithms, predictive modeling, machine learning techniques, and artificial intelligence. Cloud BI environment empowers modern businesses to utilize the true power of predictive analytics and find the industry leading patterns and trends to make predictions filled with perfection.
Excellent reporting standards
Cloud BI tools maintain excellent reporting standards by having relevant, simple & intuitive, consistent, accurate, and factual data. Leveraging the cloud BI environment will help your businesses to prioritize evolving reporting needs and new ways of utilizing industry best practices.
Scalable
Cloud BI tools can be expanded to meet the needs of a growing business based on number of users and requirements. These tools and solutions are scalable and agile in nature and help businesses build the capability to analyze massive volumes of data instantly and interactively. With cloud BI solutions, you can ensure instant access to all the data that you are collecting and storing to help your business with their growing analytical expectations.
Even though there are numerous benefits of using cloud BI tools and solutions, the businesses are also facing multiple challenges while adopting cloud BI. Here is the glimpse of top challenges that modern businesses are facing while adopting cloud BI solutions:
Security concerns
For many businesses, data related to financial information or of any other nature which are confidential, finds it challenging to store data on cloud. Certain domains such as finance and healthcare have strict data storage regulation, which makes it essential for cloud BI to meet the industry standards. Hence using Cloud BI tools will make compliance more challenging.
Reliance on a third-party provider
If the cloud temporarily goes down, it will have an impact on the business as it is dependent on the third party provider. Even if it is rectified quickly, it will lead to a loss. In case of a system failure, organizations may find it difficult to employ efficient contingency planning in the case of downtime.
The Final Thoughts:
Cloud BI tools and solutions offer significant power and capacity to businesses seeking to stay ahead of competition. To avoid the challenges of adopting the cloud BI environment, it’s critically important for businesses to find a trusted BI solution partner. If you are planning to leverage cloud BI opportunities for your business success, explore our business intelligence offerings here!
