It’s never easy to classify Business Intelligence (BI) software, and selecting the proper tool for your small business can be just as challenging. When it comes time to decide on the right BI tool for your business, there are always certain patterns to look for that can help you throughout the selection process; and customer reviews are always a good indicator of how software performs.
We’ve created a list depicting the top four business intelligence tools for different small business needs, based on reviews pulled from real small business owners. Keep in mind there are many BI tools available to you, and reading reviews and case studies will give you a broader understanding of the BI landscape and what products and features are best for your company.
Here are the top four BI tools for small businesses:
Zoho Reports treats its users with access to a wide variety of data input formats, visual representations of data, embedding codes and collaborative analysis, among other attractive reporting features.
Main strength: Collaboration is one of the most regularly praised features of Zoho Reports, and its users also call attention to Zoho Reports’ automatically generated charts, which can help analyze data and determine a projects progress.
Main weakness: Reviewers have mentioned that importing data might be difficult in Zoho Reports, which causes new users to have trouble as they learn how to handle this feature.
Alteryx is a step forward from basic tools, and its main focus is to ease users into more advanced functions. Alteryx is a great alternative for companies wanting to save money on coding and development as it allows for the integration of data from several sources into a central interface that can handle spatial, predictive and statistical analysis.
Main strength: Data blending and automation may be a game-changer for expanding companies, as it makes analysis and reporting more efficient. Alteryx’s fast processing also compels users to focus on gathering raw data that’ll help make better decisions.
Main weakness: Not a weakness per se, but Alteryx’s pricing may be a turn-off for bootstrapped companies, as well as companies that do not plan on taking full advantage of this tool’s features.
TIBCO Spotfire’s goal is to help companies anticipate opportunities and risks by using a platform that translates data into user-friendly interpretations and judging by their reviews, they’re succeeding in doing so. This tool’s popularity with companies of all sizes might be due to the emphasis they’ve put into creating visually-compelling graphics that, along with statistical analysis tools, help all types of users understand their company’s performance.
Main strength: Data integration is a big advantage of Spotfire, so those who love measuring everything will certainly take advantage of this tool’s thoroughness.
Main weakness: Those who want to use this tool’s more advanced features will certainly have to go through a learning curve, as the design of its User Experience may not be the most intuitive.
InsightSquared is the highest-rated tool among all company sizes, and that has a lot to do with it allowing seamless integration with Salesforce, another widely-used software. Users mention its intuitive interface, the amount of options it offers and the quality of their customer service as some of InsightSquared’s advantages, not to mention the cost-effectiveness of this tool.
Main strength: Salesforce is one of the biggest tools in the market, so the inter-functionality feature on this tool makes purchasing InsightSquared an addition to a company’s software arsenal, instead of a problem to solve.
Main weakness: This could seem counterintuitive, but some of this tool’s users have mentioned that its abundance of settings and features may feel like overkill and be confusing.
Whatever your industry or company size is, you should always be on the look for improvement, and we all know technology can be a great ally in the search for optimization. In a highly-competitive market where top brands are always looking for even the slightest ways to surpass each other, falling behind is never an option.
Special thanks to Carlos Cano for contributing this post. Carlos Cano is a writer and marketing strategist. He’s also a musician, a published author, digital nomad, and regular contributor to TrustRadius, where he shares his knowledge of the latest trends in B2B news and software.
