Business Intelligence (BI) is a great tool, but it is not necessary for everyone. Small companies do not need expensive BI tools, which they will not even have enough staff for, but there are more suitable and cheaper options for them. If such a small company cannot even afford these "free" BI tools, it should not think about introducing them into the organisational environment at all. In this situation BI is unnecessary for them and will not move them forward in terms of company growth.
When a company grows and the processes it has been running on its own until now no longer suit it sufficiently and do not keep up with its progress, it can start to think about applying BI. It will simplify and speed up company processes and thereby also save a lot of time and employee costs. If you introduce BI into the company only because it is a trendy word, you will get very inefficient results from your work.
What Is Used and What Does Archetix Use?
- Traditional Tools – Excel + VBA (+ Power Query) – For established companies that have been running on the Microsoft suite for decades, the most common BI tool is Microsoft Excel, often enriched with cool macros in VBA or extended with Power Query (the predecessor of Power BI). We know that this technology stack can deliver the required results, especially for users who are used to it, but we do not think it is suitable for a modern company, mainly for two reasons. The first is that the data is processed on the user's local device, the second that individual users are forced to repeat the same steps again and again, whether manually or with macros.
- Data Transformation – Power Query (or another transformer) + SQL – Some companies using traditional tools gradually began to extend their use with data modelling tools, which allowed them to move part of the calculations from macros and local workstations to more sophisticated processes, whose outputs could then often end up in a database hosted on the local network. This step can already be considered a big shift, but it is still very much tied to geography and the need to be present in a certain place or to set up complicated VPN tunnels.
- Data and Analysis in Cloud – The current trend and approach of recent years, into which our company was also born, is using a cloud approach from the very first moment. In its purest form the cloud is used in the so-called managed mode, which means that you buy specific computing power or space for storing data and do not deal with the hardware (that is, the computers and servers) behind it at all. The process then looks like this: from the first moment we push all the data through data pipelines into cloud storage (data market, data warehouse, data lake) and their transformation, cleaning and preparation is also handled in the cloud. The most common stack used in our environment is Google Cloud + Keboola + DBT.
Roles and Processes in a Business Intelligence (BI) Team
Data Engineer
Data engineers are responsible for organising and moving data between systems, that is, for the ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) process. This process ensures that data is obtained, prepared, stored and optimised for further use.
Data Analyst
Data analysts are usually responsible for extracting this data from databases, data warehouses or data marts for a specific report or project. They use it to create metrics and models that ultimately help the final report users answer important questions.
Data Visualization Specialist
Specialists in data visualisation focus on presenting these metrics to business and management-oriented staff in the company. After all, what is the use of all the technical findings if we cannot communicate them clearly to a non-technical audience? Reports and presentations are created with today's well-known tools Google Data Studio (now Looker Studio), Microsoft Power BI, Tableau and others. The resulting reports or dashboards show information about important metrics that are constantly updated and available.
Business Leader (partner)
We must not forget the business leaders, who are ultimately our main audience. Strictly speaking they are not part of the Business Intelligence team, but they are important because their business decisions are made on the basis of the findings we produce.
Depending on the size of the team, the roles above are then split further or new, more specialised ones are added.
A Business Intelligence team is becoming an integral part of modern businesses that want to succeed competitively in their market. This team can be built purely from internal employees, or analytics studios such as Archetix can be invited to help create it.
Would you need help with, advice on or the introduction of Business Intelligence into your company processes? Then do not hesitate to write to us and we will give you expert advice from practising professionals!