Anna Shalomova
PPM Consultant
How does the internal business intelligence department abandon Excel without abandoning it? Indeed, each of you is familiar with the situation when the organization began to conduct internal analytics in Excel because its capabilities were more than enough. With the company’s growth, tasks become more complicated, data volumes grow, and Excel begins to groan first. Then it turns into the reason for the daily waste of a tremendous amount of paid work time. On average, the company preparing and consolidating data through Excel takes about 80% of the employee’s working time, with 79% waiting for the program to respond. The person performed some manipulations, wrote a formula or value, pressed Enter, and went for a smoke, coffee, or lunch. Some consolidation and data updating operations take up to 2 hours.
Why Choose Power BI for Your Business Intelligence
- Interconnectivity: Microsoft’s solution is better, not because this company has developed both Excel and Power BI. And not even because they are well integrated. Power BI allows you to use the entire folder as a data source, into which the user can put different files as he sees fit (including text files). And process them literally with one click. Well, add other sources of information if necessary.
- Speed: Power BI and Power Query speed up your work and allow you to bypass the limit on the amount of data that Excel operates. At first, it was 64 thousand lines, and now the bill goes up to millions. So if Excel capabilities limit you, the next logical step could be switching to either Power Pivot or Power BI: they use the same approaches and mechanisms. If you used some formulas in the M language (in Power Query) or DAX in Power Pivot to process the data, all this would work almost without Power BI changes. After introducing Power BI, the duration of the calculation phase decreased by 200–300 times (!).
- Integration: Power BI, as a single integrated product, allows you to combine all those technologies that have been “hung” on Excel for years, like toys on a Christmas tree. Although data cannot be entered into it (almost), A + B cannot be considered, as is done in Excel, but it can be used as a processor for large amounts of data. For example, if you need to perform some calculations on a vast number of columns or rows. Excel can do it too, but in hours, and Power BI in seconds.
- Free bonuses: You can’t ignore the financial component. Power Pivot Desktop is free if you only want to use it to integrate your Excel files.
- Reporting: With Power BI, not only cross-sectional analytics on projects will become possible. Suppose you upgrade to Power BI Pro, RS, or even Power BI Premium. In that case, you can create interactive reports, manage access levels, and provide access via web or mobile devices.
Consulting and Customization
Power BI is a fantastic resource for any business. It is an asset that can bring maximum outcomes with the correct configuration and from appropriate data pulling from all the sources. If you are confused when trying to figure out if you need help from Power BI professionals, you must remember that it is never a bad idea to ask for help. It would be best to have a Power BI Consultant who’s always ready to give a hand. However, Power BI is a very intuitive tool, especially for an experienced Excel user.
FluentPro offers Power BI consulting services and turnkey business intelligence solutions based on the Microsoft BI platform.
Our consulting specialists have vast experience in adopting and customizing Microsoft tools for business. We will help you overcome any challenges to your business goals. We’ve got:
- Individual approach to every company, no matter your enterprise’s size or industry.
- Advanced customization that is tailor-made for your team and its needs.
- Personal approach to the organization’s key people wanting to get started with Power BI.
- Availability of the service from anywhere in the world.
- Deliver training to the key Power BI business users to learn the skills needed to be successful.
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