[infographic] The business benefits of business intelligence (BI)

“Free BI tools trial, business analytics software for free, free BI reporting with AI-powered insights”– these offers are tempting business people all the time especially as new open-source players enter the market and want cut-through.

For many sales professionals, the phrase daily sales report used to conjure up thoughts of frustrating delays and data that's already stale by the time it is received. Often these reports were created by the IT or finance team who had a long list of requests, so the information was more of an historical snapshot. Fortunately, the creation of sophisticated data analytics has improved this work, transforming sales reporting into a self-service and quick task.

In today’s business world, we are faced with the constant struggle to bring our data into line. The sheer volume of data that businesses generate can be overwhelming to simply manage, never mind analyze. A survey by Phocas revealed that 60% of businesses identified ‘no expertise in-house,' and 33% said, ‘too much data to unravel' as the main obstacles that prevent them from breaking down data silos.

The voice of the BI and analytics community has officially spoken following the release of The BI & Analytics Survey 23 by software selection and strategy experts, BARC last week.