Importance of Power BI in data analytics and Business Intelligence applications

Power BI is a Business intelligence and data visualization tool that makes use of visual analytics to enable people and organizations to discern data representations and insights effortlessly. The visualizations created in Power BI are engaging and take the excel workflow to the next level and help stakeholders make sense of the massive amounts of data available.

As per a study done by Gartner, Power BI is the leading data visualization tool having more than 6 million users. The study also found that 97% of Fortune 500 companies are actively using it.

Let us look at the main components of Power BI

Power BI components

Based on the platform it is used, Power BI consists of two components. These are Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service. Let us understand each in a bit more detail.

• Power BI Desktop

It is a free desktop version that allows for data analysis and report creation and includes the Power Query Editor.

With the Power BI desktop, it is possible for the user to connect to various types of data sources, and then change them into a data model. In the final part of the report, the data professional adds visual elements based on the data model.

• Power BI Service

It is a cloud-based version of Power BI with light editing functionality. It can be used to share and distribute reports across the company/ organization. Being a cloud-based version of Power BI, the Power BI service enables the user to create numerous kinds of visualization and carry out variance analytics tasks in the cloud.

Let's now look at the reasons why Power BI is a must-have skill for all data professionals, especially data scientists.

How learning Power BI can help you:

As a powerful data visualization tool, Power BI can help data scientists and other data professionals accomplish many tasks such as:

• Extracting data insights with no coding skills required

Power BI has an intuitive user interface that helps analysts (both technical and non-technical) to build data visualizations and analyses effectively.

A useful drag-and-drop interface makes it convenient to answer complex data-related questions with just basic programming skills. This feature enables users to perform advanced analytics tasks such as trend analyses, and regressions in a hassle-free manner.

Another useful feature of Power BI is that it can be integrated with a variety of existing Microsoft apps, such as Microsoft teams, Excel, and PowerPoint, thereby I'm using data insights in my regular workflow.

• Achieving democratization of data insights with dashboards

The dashboard is one of the most familiar features of Power BI. Here, data is represented visually using tools like charts and graphs to give a visual glimpse of the company’s performance and processes.

Power BI has many reporting features that users can use to readily create well-designed interactive dashboards. It is also capable of connecting to various data sources, helping users create potential data models. Examples include SQL Server, Excel spreadsheets, Amazon Redshift, etc. Consequently, it is possible to make these dashboards more enriched with data from various applications across the organization.

These dashboards aid in aligning an organization’s efforts and data insights, and accelerating across-the-board decision-making.

• Convey data stories with advanced data visualization

In driving decision-making, the importance of effective data storytelling can hardly be overstated given the data explosion happening in today's digital age.

Dashboards are perfect for monitoring data and keeping users updated regarding things that are happening. However, data stories help shape the data into a step-by-step process to explain why specific trends are happening.

Conclusion

In this article, we focussed on the importance of Power BI in data analytics and the Business intelligence field. In the data-driven economy today, data is the most valuable asset for all. Data insights enable companies in decision-making regarding business strategies, sales, marketing, growth, etc. Analyzing trends, statistics and facts can be a real challenge without a visual representation. Power BI is a skill that can help weave magic with data. Hence, for all data scientists and data professionals, Power BI is an indispensable skill to learn and master.

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