The Ultimate Guide to Business Intelligence Platforms: 6 BI Tools to Watch Out For in 2024

Business intelligence platforms — what are they, and why do you need one?

These are the questions we'll answer in this post.

We'll also cover the top BI platforms that are available and accessible to businesses of any size, namely:

• Polymer
• Tableau
• Looker Studio
• Power BI

…and more.

Let's get started.

What are Business Intelligence Platforms?

Think of a BI solution as a one-stop shop for all your business data needs. It has everything you need to gather, organize, analyze, visualize, and report your data to stakeholders.

BI platforms can collect data from a variety of business applications — from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to marketing analytics tools. This gives all types of businesses an opportunity to leverage raw data to sharpen their decision-making.

Why are Business Intelligence Platforms Important?

Here's a quick rundown of the benefits of BI platforms:

• Quickly turn business data into readable visualizations. From bar charts to pivot tables, BI solutions specialize in helping users turn a sea of data into actionable insights. Modern BI platforms lower the barrier by offering drag-and-drop visual interfaces that anyone can learn regardless of their background in data science.
• Streamline reporting across your entire organization. BI platforms allow you to send scheduled reports or provide stakeholders direct access to your data dashboards. Some platforms also allow you to embed individual data visualizations or entire reports in your website or app.
• Create a single source of truth for your business. A centralized BI platform eliminates the need to access multiple data analysis and reporting tools for the sake of obtaining specific datasets. You can have everything in one place — supercharging the efficiency of your team in making data-driven decisions.
• Create white label reports. If you run an agency or would like to publish datasets as marketing material, white label reporting tools ensure viewers know who to thank for the insights. You can insert your logo, add rich text sections, customize reports with your brand colors, and more.

What's the Difference Between Enterprise Business Intelligence and BI For Small Businesses?

Put simply, enterprise business intelligence is the application of BI on a wider, more complex scale. This is mainly because enterprise business intelligence aims to consolidate data management and analytics across different departments and business units.

Traditionally, implementing an enterprise business intelligence system requires thorough planning and training. The company may also need to acquire specialized IT resources to get things up to speed.

Small business intelligence, for example, may focus on a specific aspect of the business — such as marketing, CRM, and accounting. Unlike enterprise business intelligence platforms, small BI doesn't require additional software or manpower to be used effectively.

TL;DR, enterprise business intelligence is utilized with large-scale business data in mind, whereas small business intelligence is often relied upon for more specific use cases.

However, it's worth noting that most modern BI tools are capable of handling enterprise data.

With the help of data integrations and built-in data management features, modern BI tools can help businesses collect, standardize, and organize data from various sources.

To learn more about BI, read our post on the differences between business intelligence and data analytics.

What do the Best Business Intelligence Platforms Have in Common?

Most (if not all) BI platforms offer all the benefits listed above.

However, it's important to choose the right platform that will give you the best bang for your buck. It should not only provide you with all the data collection, visualization, and reporting tools you need — as well as fit nicely with your budget.

To help you choose a BI platform and avoid overspending on features you don't need, here's a checklist of features you should look for:

1. Easy-To-Learn User Interface

An intuitive and clutter-free interface is a must if you're looking for a new BI platform. This ensures everyone on your team, regardless of their technical know-how, can reap the full benefits of their data.

More importantly, it allows you to get productive with your data as soon as possible. No need to waste hours digging through menus or reading troubleshooting guides to generate a report exactly as you envisioned it.

Polymer's drag-and-drop dashboard builder, for example, is designed to help you get things done from day one.

2. Brilliant Use of AI

We're not just talking about basic automated tasks here — a great BI platform has full-on AI features that can accomplish important tasks.

For example, PolyAI is not just a chatbot that can answer all your questions. If you input the right prompt or question, it can instantly generate ready-to-use data visualizations on your behalf.

3. Wide range of data visualizations

BI platforms come with their own set of supported data visualizations. That said, you need to choose a platform that specifically supports the visualizations you need in your dashboard.

Some of the common data visualizations for the majority of data types include:

• Bar chart
• Pivot table
• Pie chart
• Timeline/Time series
• Bubble chart
• Line plot
• Scatter plot

While having these visualizations is a great start, you may also want advanced options like dependency wheels, correlation charts, maps, and funnel charts.

Of course, what you need depends on your datasets and data analysis goals.

For example, if you're building a business intelligence dashboard for ecommerce, you may need a map visual to easily determine where most of your conversions are coming from.

4. Customizability and White Labeling

Customizability lets you tailor your BI dashboards to your organization's specific needs. It allows you to highlight your most important metrics, group related data sections, and enhance the readability of your reports.

Of course, a little bit of customization also enables you to inject your company's identity into your reports.

In addition to adjustable layouts and switchable colors, some BI platforms let you use personalization or presentation elements — from custom headlines to branded media assets. This is useful whether you're preparing reports for clients, investors, and other data stakeholders.

5. Flexible Pricing

Last but definitely not least, you need to look for a BI platform that fits your budget.

Gone are the days when businesses needed to dispense thousands of dollars to set up a BI solution. With modern products like Polymer, Tableau, and Looker Studio, your business can take advantage of BI for $50 per month or less.

Business Intelligence Platforms Comparison: Your Top 7 Options

Without further ado, here are the top seven data analytics and business intelligence platforms money can buy:

1. Polymer

Polymer is an all-in-one BI platform that can provide you with the benefits of enterprise business intelligence without the enterprise price tag.

It can help you with everything you need to create a data-driven culture within your organization, be it data collection, standardization, visualization, analysis, and reporting.

More importantly, you don't need any technical skills to work with Polymer or take full advantage of its features. The drag-and-drop dashboard builder, for example, lets you create visualizations painlessly through simple menus and AI suggestions.

Here are other noteworthy features that make Polymer a compelling choice for businesses:

• Built-in data management — Use the Polymer V3 Data Manager to set standardized column headers, create custom metrics, and access AI-generated explanations for datasets.
• Interactive reporting experiences — Not only are Polymer visualizations interactive by default, you can also enter text-based descriptions (manually or via AI) to supply additional context to viewers.
• Multiple reporting options — Share your Polymer dashboards via a direct access link, scheduled email report, embed code, or downloadable file (PDF or PPT).
• Ready-to-use templates — Set up data dashboards in a flash with pre-built, customizable report templates for Google Ads, Shopify, Google Analytics, Jira, and more.

Price: Starts at $50 per month ($25 with annual billing)

2. Tableau

Tableau is a popular BI and analytics software that's recognized for its powerful data visualization capabilities.

Just like Polymer, Tableau features a drag-and-drop dashboard builder that smoothens the learning curve for new users. The UI has also been revamped for better usability and learning, featuring a smooth onboarding experience and a wealth of learning resources.

To use Tableau, you need separate products for each role in your data team:

• Tableau Creator — A Tableau Creator plan includes the desktop app, which essentially enables you to create visualizations out of your data.
• Tableau Explorer — This plan enables self-service analytics through AI-powered insights, automated reports, alerts, and sharing.
• Tableau Viewer — Gain access to data dashboards, be it on a desktop or mobile device.

Price: $75 for Tableau Creator (required for deployment)

3. Looker Studio

Looker Studio by Google is another data visualization solution that lowers the technical barriers to business intelligence.

As a Google product, Looker Studio benefits from seamless integration with Google products like Google Sheets, Google Analytics, and Google Ads. It also supports an impressive 1,000+ data connectors to easily consolidate your data from third-party sources.

Looker Studio also supports a range of custom visualizations created by independent partners. This allows you to incorporate unique charts and interactive elements into your dashboard without coding — from Venn diagrams to sunburst charts.

Price: Free

4. Power BI

If Looker Studio is tailor-made for Google products, Power BI is perfectly cut for Microsoft 365 products. This includes OneDrive, Mail, and Microsoft Excel.

Compared to Looker Studio, Power BI has more convenient features like Quick Insights, Q&A, and a more responsive drag-and-drop dashboard editor. The platform also takes advantage of Microsoft 365 security features, like sensitivity labels and data loss prevention policies.

Price: $10 per user per month

5. Zoho Analytics

Zoho Analytics is a flexible BI platform that has all the toys advanced users may look for while keeping the front beginner-friendly for non-technical data stakeholders.

Its direct integration with popular marketing services (e.g., Mailchimp, YouTube, SurveyMonkey, and Zoho Campaigns) makes it a great fit for agencies or businesses looking to use data to empower their strategic decisions. It also has integrations for a diverse lineup of analytics tools in accounting, project management, HR management, and customer support.

Price: $30 per user per month (on-premise) or $24 per month (cloud-based)

6. Domo

Domo is a living, breathing data science ecosystem that lets you build your own BI stack using apps, data connectors, and dashboards.

It has all the features you need to take full control over your data — from ETL tools to white label reporting features. And while the dashboard creation process doesn't necessarily provide the best experience for beginners, Domo enables deep customization of each visualization.

Price: Credit-based pricing

Creating the Perfect Business Intelligence Dashboard with Polymer

Your BI platform doesn't need to have an elaborate training process that requires several hours of video tutorials or an entire online course.

A good onboarding experience helps, but a well-designed app ensures you can learn its features as you explore without holding your hand the entire time.

With Polymer, you almost always instinctively know where to go next. You have the clean and well-thought-out UI design to thank for that.

To get started with Polymer, click 'New Board' and choose your data source — or switch to the 'New Data Source' if you haven't imported your data yet.

After importing and selecting your data source, you get to pick whether to build a dashboard from scratch or use an AI-generated template. If you choose the latter, Polymer's AI will automatically create the ideal data visualizations for presenting your data.

Moving on to the Polymer dashboard editor, you can start piecing together visualizations yourself or enlist the help of AI to speed up the process.

You can obtain AI-powered suggestions through PolyAI, the "Suggested Insights" section, or via the 'Suggest for me' button in the visualization settings window.

In addition to data visualizations, Polymer also offers a handful of interactive elements that will help you convey the story behind your data. This includes rich text blocks, custom headers, ROI calculators, outliers tables, correlation charts, scorecards, and video embeds via Loom.

Take note that you can also use Polymer to create white label dashboards. You can do this on a block level (e.g., custom descriptions and colors) or from the 'Settings' menu.

Here, you can upload a custom logo, switch up your dashboard's colors, create a branded info banner, and more.

Finally, let's say you're done building your dashboard and ready to share it with stakeholders.

With Polymer, your options include sharing a direct link, scheduling automated email reports, embedding blocks to your own website or app, and exporting your board as a PDF or PPT file.

Get Started with a Free Polymer Trial

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Click here to create a free trial account.