Why should you use a cloud based BI solution?

Why go cloud based?

The cloud has been seen as the innovation booster of the new digital transformation. Its many benefits help businesses of all sizes revolutionise their operations and enhance their decision making by having real-time data insights.

Cloud-based BI or data analytics tools have been around for a few years now and have gained popularity across many sectors. Traditionally, business intelligence is perceived by many as an enterprise-class solution due to the complexity of its deployment, the huge amount of time and cost required, and the on-premises infrastructure needed for it to work.

So how is the transformational cloud-based BI different from the so-called ’traditional BI’?

Here are 5 key benefits of utilising a cloud-based BI solution and how it helps businesses to grow:

1. Ease of deployment and access

Moving data from highly complex, on-premises infrastructure to a secured, flexible, and scalable cloud solution is revolutionary. The cloud has made it much easier for companies to access, capture and integrate different types of data across multiple systems.

Not only has it lowered the bar of utilising data and accelerated the adoption of business intelligence systems, but the cloud also brought these analytics into the business context where the dashboards can be accessed by every manager anytime from different devices, not just the IT department. This change is critical and will create one version of the truth across the organisation for a better and connected internal communication process.

2. Time and cost-effective

A typical on-premises BI solution, added in the maintenance fee, could easily cost a company up to £500K or even £1M to get it up and running. It takes months for the solution to be developed and customised, and the time involved from the entire team is also significant. Despite all the effort put in, there’s still risk that this solution will not succeed – a huge investment that only enterprises could afford.

Now, cloud-based BI solutions make it possible for businesses of all sizes to unlock the power of data analytics with much lower cost, faster turnaround and minimum time involved. Businesses using cloud-based BI tools can expect a much faster ROI and enjoy the benefits of data insights without making a big commitment.

3. Flexibility

Another huge advantage of a cloud-based BI solution is its flexibility. There’s no need to buy extra hardware to get started. The cloud infrastructure allows companies to approach their data in many ways to satisfy their complex business needs. It also has the ability to connect to data from anywhere and in different formats. You can access your dashboards anywhere, anytime on your preferred devices.

Using a solution with such a level of flexibility is key to driving business agility – with actionable insights on your hands whenever you need to make fast and accurate decisions.

4. Scalability and speed

A cloud-based BI solution provides a high level of scalability that is critical for businesses to facilitate all the system integrations and configurations based on their changing needs. The time required to make such updates is very short – a new module could be developed within weeks instead of months.

Meanwhile, users can be added within minutes, and dashboards can be shared straight away across the organisation. Cloud-based BI systems scale as your business grows and help you keep up with the rapidly changing dynamics of the marketplace.

5. Better data Security

Implementing a cloud BI solution doesn’t mean trading in data security, though it is often the primary concern that stops businesses from starting their data journey in the cloud. In fact, the data sitting in the cloud is even safer than those stored in on-premises BI facilities if high standards of security measures are in place.

Cloud service or platform providers usually have an experienced team of data security experts to monitor and implement the security measures including consistent security updates, patch deployment and others. The key here is to check if your supplier’s information security management has met the standards required, ISO/IEC 27001 for instance, to ensure that your data is in good hands.

Cloud Business Intelligence - a potential of such a solution

The new wave of digital transformation is already on the way for almost every sector in the business world. We are seeing increasing numbers of pharmacy groups and auto dealer groups starting to harness the power of data analytics using cloud-based BI systems to drive business agility. With a better information tool to support decision-making, they are able to embrace the digital opportunities accelerated by the pandemic and get ahead of their competitors in the marketplace.