9 Best Business Analytics Tools for Tracking Performance
So, you want to take your business to the next level? Regardless of what industry you’re in, you’re going to need business analytics tools to gather intelligence.
These analytical tools give you actionable insights that allow you to improve your business. Thankfully, these business intelligence tools are more flexible and accessible than ever. They're easy enough for small businesses and powerful enough for large enterprises.
Business analytics software allows you to make sense of big data. It’ll help you collect, analyze, and convert your data into digestible reports. And you can use these reports to improve your bottom line.
The only catch is that there are so many BI reporting tools on the market that it can be confusing to find the right one. We’re going to take a look at the best analytics software on the market, as identified by our top experts, to make your job easier.
What are Business Analytics Tools?
As you’ve probably already noticed, business analytics tools are known by several names in the industry. From BI tools to analytics software, it’s all referring to similar types of business intelligence tools.
Regardless of what you call them, these tools endeavor to provide insight into your business with advanced modeling. They help with the cost-effective use of resources, KPI measurement, business health planning, and making strategic decisions. They help you gain insights that can:
Resolve urgent issues.
Provide a real-time organizational view.
Anticipate future outcomes with predictive analytics.
Why it’s Important to Track Your Performance
You wouldn't drive a car with a blindfold on, would you? That's essentially what you're doing if you're not tracking your business’s performance.
If you can’t see what’s going on with your business, you can’t steer it in the right direction. For example, if you don't know which lead generation method helps you close the most sales, how do you decide where to focus your efforts and finances? This is just one of the many reasons you need analytics tools.
The same concept is why business owners need to perform financial analyses, draft detailed business plans, and follow careful business budgets. It’s all about seeing the big picture.
SumUp Reporting Tools for Business Intelligence
SumUp isn’t just an easy way to accept credit card payments. In addition to credit card processing, we offer a convenient dashboard that gives you analytics reports on several data points to improve your business analytics. The dashboard functions similarly to financial analytic software offerings.
The SumUp Air Lite Card Reader enables small businesses to accept credit, debit and contactless payments with a single device.
All clients who use our card reader as their POS also have access to:
Revenue Reports
Payout Reports
Transaction Reports
You can access this information on your Dashboard at SumUp.me. It will display all information gathered from your virtual terminal so you can get a top-down look at how your business is performing.
The Best Business Analytics Tools
Now that you’re ready to go beyond invoice software and look at the most popular software for business intelligence, let’s examine the top six options.
Sisense
Sisense is one of the most straightforward business analytics tools to use for those who aren't tech-savvy. It's user-friendly while allowing anyone in your business to manage complex datasets and visualize the data without the help of your IT department.
Sisense will bring together data from AdWords, Salesforce, and Google Analytics. Because it uses in-chip technology, it also processes data faster than other tools. It functions as an API-first cloud business intelligence tool that makes it easy to combine data and create analytics reports from anywhere.
Systum
Systum is a BI tool perfect for organizations who need to consolidate and streamline processes between several B2B and B2C channels. It helps increase efficiency and productivity, and it includes several sales features. For example, it has built-in CRM, a B2B portal, and inventory management.
Systum integrates with Amazon, QuickBooks, eBay, and several other programs.
Dundas BI
Dundas BI is one of the top browser-based business analytics tools. Like most cloud business intelligence options, it’s flexible and allows users to connect in real-time to several different data sources. This analytics software offers visualizations in the form of customizable graphs, tables, and charts viewable on both mobile and desktop.
Dundas also allows users to build new reports and track various performance metrics for better analysis.
Tableau
Tableau is a business intelligence platform that makes data discovery and visualization more accessible. It allows you to analyze, visualize, and share data while bypassing the IT department. It supports Google Analytics, Salesforce, Oracle, MS Excel, and MS SQL. Unlike many analytics programs, it has a version that can run both locally and online.
Tableau is free for personal use, but it also caters to businesses via a paid software program.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is lumped in with many business analytics tools, but it is a standalone data analysis tool that allows you to track business performance online. It enables business owners to measure their RIO for advertising, and track data across video, Flash, and social networking sites/apps. It’s a simple way to gain a better understanding of your customers.
While Google Analytics does allow you to collect fundamental data from your website, most businesses find the need for more in-depth business analytics tools.
Looker
Looker is an up-and-coming data discovery app that integrates with any SQL warehouse or database. It’s a good option for midsize and enterprise businesses, though it can be used by smaller companies as well. It offers powerful collaborative features, excellent tech support, and handy visualization that improve ease of use.
Looker has a clean interface that allows you to connect your team to use data in a scalable, flexible platform.
SAP Business Intelligence
SAP Business Intelligence offers advanced analytics software intended for all roles—end-users, management, and IT. It provides a multitude of functionalities in a single platform that enables machine learning, planning, analysis, and BI predictive analytics. While SAP Business Intelligence doesn’t offer the prettiest platform, it makes up for it in specificity and intuitive design.
On a side note, SAP recently partnered with UNICEF to provide quality education, job skills training, and life skills training to disadvantaged young people.
SAS
SAS is one of the most widely used business analytics tools on the market. It functions as a versatile and robust tool that’s easy to learn for beginners. Despite a few rough patches, SAS has added popular new modules that expand what it is capable of. A few of the new modules include anti-money laundering, analytics for IoT, and SAS Analytics Pro for Midsize Businesses.
SAS is loaded with tools that are designed to help users analyze and understand collected data so they can better draw inferences.
Excel
Microsoft Excel is among the most popular business analytics tools in the world. Almost all data scientists rely on Excel to one extent or another. And non-analytics professionals usually don't have access to more commercial types of business reporting software.
Excel handles the grunt work for business analytics, making itself vital for data collection and organization on all scales.
In Conclusion
Now that you’re up to date on the best analytics tools for business, you’re better prepared to manage and understand your business’s data. This will allow you to make all areas of your business more efficient and better understand what’s working (and what isn’t).
Just as Excel is an excellent tool to use in conjunction with other BI software, SumUp can make your financial data tasks easier.
Our card reader will help you stop losing sales and paying large (sometimes unpredictable) fees through other companies. We offer superior technology, an intuitive design that works with any mobile device, and transparent pricing.
Would you like to keep learning about ways to improve your business? Check out these articles for more:
