Microsoft Power BI

A business intelligence reporting system.

Product Overview

Power BI is a data visualization and analytics tool from Microsoft, letting businesses transform raw data into meaningful insights. Free and paid versions help create custom reports. Its integration with other Microsoft products enhances its appeal to those familiar with the Microsoft ecosystem.

Pros

  • Free version available
  • Frequent updates
  • High-impact, visual data summaries
  • Integration with Microsoft products
  • Similar interface to MS Word and Outlook
  • Large number of custom visualizations

Cons

  • Basic features
  • Cannot share without upgrading to Pro
  • Limited access to other databases and servers
  • Number of options can be overwhelming to beginners
  • Sharing reports/dashboards is costly

Target Market

Power BI is best for businesses and individuals who work with Excel and want a more powerful tool to visualize and analyze their data. The system can be used by all industries that work with data.

About Microsoft Power BI

Power BI from Microsoft is a suite of business analytics tools to analyze data and share insights. Power BI dashboards provide a 360-degree view for business users with their most important metrics in one place, updated in real time, and available on all of their devices.

With one click, users can explore the data behind their dashboard using intuitive tools that make finding answers easy. Creating a dashboard is simple thanks to over 50 connections to popular business applications, complete with pre-built dashboards crafted by experts that help you get up and running quickly. And you can access your data and reports from anywhere with the Power BI Mobile apps, which update automatically with any changes to your data.

Video Overview

If you are a data analyst delivering reporting and analytics to your organization, Power BI lets you be productive and creative with what you build. Power BI Desktop is a feature-rich data mashup and report authoring tool. Combine data from disparate databases, files, and web services with visual tools that help you understand and fix data quality and formatting issues automatically. With over 20 built-in visuals and a vibrant community of custom visualizations, create stunning reports that communicate your message effectively. With the Power BI service, publish reports securely to your organization and setup automatic data refresh so everyone has the latest information.

Power BI can unify all of your organization’s data, whether in the cloud or on-premises. Using the Power BI gateways, you can connect SQL Server databases, Analysis Services models, and many other data sources to your same dashboards in Power BI. If you already have reporting portals or applications, embed Power BI reports and dashboards for a unified experience.

Pricing

The cost of Power BI will be dependent on the number of users as well as data size, data update frequency, and the size of deployment.

Power BI Desktop

  • Basic report authoring
  • Free from Microsoft
  • Connect to hundreds of data sources
  • Clean and prepare your data with various visual tools
  • Build reports with custom visualizations

Power BI Pro

  • Starts at $10/user/month
  • Build dashboards
  • Automatic updates
  • Collaboration tools
  • Audit and set user limitations
  • Apps allow for additional functionality

Power BI Premium

  • Capacity pricing per node/month
  • Share data with users in and out of your business
  • Manage dedicated server capacity
  • Higher strorage limits than the Pro version
  • Interactive online reports

Prices for Power BI are typically advertised on a per month basis but require an annual subscription. Discounts are available for academic, government, and nonprofit organizations.

Features

Financial Performance

Get the full picture across different data sources in seconds.

  • See all of your data in a single view, from summary statements to account-level details
  • Click to drill down into specific regions or segments
  • Make decisions faster with real-time updates

Revenue & Profitability

Deliver answers fast with executive-level financial dashboards.

  • React quickly to the latest revenue data with on-demand reports
  • Mash up data to identify variances
  • Forecast with enough time to course correct when necessary

Marketing

Turn marketing data into actionable insight with interactive dashboards that make results accessible.

  • Analyze campaigns in real-time
  • Identify changes in customer trends and sentiment
  • Compare actual revenue, costs, and ROI for segments, campaigns, channels, and more

Quota Management

Make data-driven decisions about the future based on past and present information.

  • Gain insight into sales progress against forecasts
  • Easily analyze the performance of specific geographies or individual account owners

Keep your team informed by quickly sharing interactive visuals with others.

  • Track sales trends to optimize strategies and inform long-term business plans
  • Share insights with sales teams
  • Dynamically adjust your tactics and update in real-time across all devices

Sales Performance

Get a single, holistic view of your sales performance across segments.

  • Leverage live data and real-time dashboards to review current sales performance
  • Easily identify underperforming areas of your business
  • Determine the variance between actual revenue and sales targets by segment

Human Resources

Make informed decisions with interactive dashboards that make detailed data accessible.

  • Monitor the progress and growth of individuals against goals and role-based metrics
  • Investigate in real-time by clicking down into underlying data
  • Ask questions in natural language using Power BI’s intuitive Q&A format

IT

See everything in one place including network systems, services, applications, and security data.

  • Connect Power BI easily to other tools
  • Integrate Power BI with your existing solutions for an end-to-end approach to data analytics
  • Work equally well with Microsoft products like Azure Active Directory and non-Microsoft products like SAP

Production

Improve insight by combining data from production to distribution.

  • Lead stand-up meetings on the factory floor with live dashboards
  • Optimize manufacturing performance
  • Easily identify areas for process improvement
Starting Price
$10 /user/month
Price Range Learn More
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Product Overview

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