Where is BI Headed in 2019? Top 3 Trends You Need to Know

November 5, 2018 | Business Intelligence

In the digital age, you don’t run your business without analytics.

And analytics no longer mean drawing graphs and pie charts out of raw data.

With the advent of BI (business intelligence), it has become essential for organizations to draw insights from dynamic, real-time data and take proactive business decisions in order to stay alive.

The BI ecosystem itself is evolving constantly with new tech and trends such as AI, data visualization, AR/VR, and so on. And keeping a track of it is crucial for continuous business growth.

So, what are the top BI trends for 2019? Let’s find out.

NLP – Making Interaction with Data More Human-like

NLP (Natural Language Processing) promises a paradigm shift in how we interact with data. The new developments in the area have made it possible for laymen to interact with data in a way once reserved for data scientists only.

Today, BI tools can understand a question based on the context of preceding questions, making the conversation more human-like. For example, if you ask a BI tool ‘who are the top AI investors in Europe?’ and then shoot a follow-up question ‘what about Asia?’, it will understand the question’s intent correctly.

This NLP-backed capability also works with data visualization. For instance, if you ask the tool ‘what that red spot in the graph represents’, it will understand and answer correctly.

Breaking Silos – Making Data Available Where Needed

Data Analysts love BI tools but there are instances where they find them inefficient. For instance, when they have to analyze data at one place and execute the gathered insights in an independent application.

The new generation of BI tools (or BI platform updates) will come with capabilities such as mobile and embedded analytics to merge analytics with core business operations. With these capabilities, engineers will have direct access to actionable insights within the application they are working on, rather than looking into the analytics silo or fetching data from a shared server.

For example, with embedded analytics, salespeople using CRM software like Salesforce will have details like preferences, spent time, etc., of every customer right in front of them to initiate a more informed conversation with customers.

Cloud Analytics – Improving Efficiency

Data is moving to the cloud rapidly. Globally, around 80% of businesses are leveraging cloud services already. So, it is not far-fetched to assume that analytical tools will follow where the data resides – on the cloud.

Just like cloud computing, cloud analytics will offer some inherent benefits, to name a few, better efficiency, flexibility, and opportunities to implement new deployment models. For example, mobile dashboards for employees on the field and secure dashboard sharing with partners without having to clear a firewall every time.

Additionally, BI tools will also come up with features to support corporates’ multi-cloud strategy by bringing the capability of joining data from multiple resources.

Final Remarks

It is a no-brainer that adoption of Business Intelligence tools among corporates will only increase with time. That’s all good. But there’s a catch.

Even if you have adopted the BI technology, but if your workforce doesn’t leverage it, it is of no use. Quite often the assumption that every employee is getting value from a tool just because they have access to it can impact the ROI severely without your knowing.

So, it is vital that with BI’s adoption you also encourage and train employees to engage with BI technology in their day to day decision making.

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