Traditional Business Intelligence (BI) tools work around a central data warehouse, usually installed on-premises. This model is, however, not suitable for today’s enterprises that need anytime, anywhere access. Enter cloud-based BI. The BI service provider hosts the data and the analytic software in the cloud. The users get insights through the browser or apps. 

Cloud BI operates in the public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid model. Each model improves the accessibility and capability of BI tools.

1. Leverage the Resilience of the Cloud

BI solutions are only as good as the software it contains. Traditional BI solutions require heavy investments, making them unviable for most businesses. Businesses have to make upfront investments. They also have to commit more investments frequently to upgrade to the latest tools.

Cloud BI converts back-breaking CAPEX into easily attributable OPEX.

The cloud does away with the hassles of buying, installing, or updating software. Businesses rather subscribe to the software and tools they need. They do not waste time and effort on installing, configuring or updating software.

2. Make use of Unbridled Flexibility and Scalability

Enterprise data comes in from a variety of sources. The best BI solutions extract data from multiple and often disparate sources and create a data lake. It then cleanses the data and transforms it into the required format, making it analytic-ready. Analytic tools dip into the data lake for various analytical operations.

The elastic scalability of the cloud allows businesses to hire resource clusters for a few hours or days. They may add resources for testing, proofs-of-concept, upgrades and other environments effortlessly. They may also shed such resources easily when the task is over.

With cloud BI, businesses also get the flexibility to pick services. They may choose the best tools to address the analytical challenges of varying complexities.

3. Exploit Fast and Secure Collaboration

The success of any enterprise today depends on seamless communications. With the external environment fluid, business executives have to act fast to seize the deal. To do so, they need actionable insights without lag.

The cloud enhances the collaborative powers of BI tools. Business users, including executives in the field, get easy access to analytical insights through the web interface or smartphone apps. These options allow executives to share analytical insights and other information in real-time easily. They may, for, instance, generate a report, to have it delivered to the field agent automatically. The field agent may apply custom visualizations, to see the report in a way he understands best.

4. Activate Self Service Capabilities

Cloud BI empowers line managers to construct and extract custom reports. They do not have to depend on specialist business analysts.

Consider marketing and sales. The BI dashboard makes explicit:

• Global trends, and drill down to individual preferences.

• Real-time sales and purchasing figures and accompanying trends.

• The impact or results of marketing campaigns and promotions in real-time.

Best in class cloud-based BI solutions offer in-depth analytics of the data streams. They enhance the output with visual analytics such as flowcharts, diagrams, charts, and decision trees. These resources make data-driven storytelling easier.

5. Get Advanced Mobility for Dispersed Operations

Today’s enterprise assets spread over a wide geographical area. Aggregating data at an enterprise location for storage and analysis is impractical, if not impossible. It takes a distributed model to store and analyse the vast swathes of information.

The cloud enables easy access and sharing of cross-location data. Cloud-based BI solutions integrate business intelligence from various data sources. The cloud makes it easy to integrate BI solutions with other programs and databases and enable seamless data flow.

Use cases abound. Cloud-based and BI-powered data collection tools enable:

• Retail companies to get greater control of their supply chain and inventory stocks
• Food companies to tweak their operations in a more environmentally sustainable way.
• Pharma companies to avoid distributing products with expired dates
• Oil and gas majors leverage geological data to find oil and gas deposits.

Business executives using cloud-based BI stay connected round-the-clock despite being geographically distant. They have ready access to project deliverable status and other critical reports.

6. Explore Embedded Analytics

Embedded analytics augments end-to-end business processes with machine learning capabilities. Enterprises embed analytics into their processes to roll out intelligent products. The global market for embedded analytics will touch $60 billion by 2023. By 2021, 90% of intelligent systems will have an embedded decision-centric computing architecture. These systems will detect and evaluate conditions and decide how to respond.

Embedding analytics do away with the need for complicated back-end supporting infrastructure. But the prerequisites are:

• The distributed processing capabilities offered by the cloud.
• Augmented analytics, which leverage machine learning and natural language to automate insights and give users instant access to analytical insights.

The potential is endless.

Intelligent supply chains promote sustainable procurement and reduce wastage.

• Thomson Reuters integrates advanced cloud analytics with in-memory computing into its tax solution. The product helps businesses keep up with complex and changing tax regulations.
• The Netherlands-based Wolters Kluwer combines Big Data and analytics with the cloud. The product helps businesses make sense of the growing mass of corporate data from fragmented systems.
• EOH International’s EnerClever’s turnkey waste management system bases operations on real-time data from bin sensors. The improved system makes waste collection efficient and reduces resource consumption.

Data-driven decisions are worth their weight in gold in today’s digital age. With the cloud, the business can hit the ground running. With the service provider taking care of the infrastructure, executives get more time to plot strategies. They leverage cloud BI to make informed decisions faster.

Going forward, the convergence with the latest emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) will transform the capabilities of BI even further. Is your infrastructure ready for AI?