What are Business Intelligence (BI) Tools?

Business Intelligence (BI) tools are software applications that collect, analyze, process and present large amounts of data from external and internal systems. BI tools provide a way to prepare data for analysis so users can create visually appealing reports, dashboards and data visualizations.

Thanks to BI tools, both employees and managers can accelerate and improve decision-making, increase operational efficiency, report and review KPIs, pinpoint new revenue potentials, identify market trends and new business opportunities.

Some of the major types of BI tools are enterprise reporting (this is where Telerik's .NET reporting tool falls, providing lightweight but feature-rich reports), online analytics processing (OLAP), real-time analysis, dashboards, embedded BI, etc. The collective name of BI tools is data visualization tools.
In addition to data visualization, BI tools provide different levels of interactivity and line of business (LoB) features. The main purpose of these features is better data discovery and data analysis as well as better data usability from end-users. The most typical LoB features are data alerts, scheduling, different levels of user authentication and authorization, e-mail notifications when some changes in data have occurred, etc.

Some BI platforms now include additional analytical capabilities such as ability to leverage big data, predictive analytics using data smashing and statistical modeling, full-fledged statistical capabilities.
There are some major benefits that any BI reporting tools brings to any business: turn data into actionable information, improve visibility with appealing reporting of main business indicators, give insights to business managers, boost organizational productivity and performance and predict the future development of business.

BI tools are now affordable and accessible no matter the size of organization. According to Gartner, BI tools will develop very fast in the forthcoming years and will be more often used as a starting point and fundament for informed business decisions. For more information, visit Telerik Reporting and Telerik Report Server pages.