Can a Business Intelligence Platform Make Spreadsheets Obsolete?

Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheet programs have become indispensable business tools. Not only are spreadsheets useful for keeping track of data and making calculations, they contain a number of business intelligence features and data visualizations. However, as vital as spreadsheets have become, they are relatively complicated to understand and use. While you can connect to external sources, the more data and sources you have, the more cumbersome spreadsheets become. Plus, there's a new kid on the block: business intelligence platforms.

What is a business intelligence platform? Though business intelligence isn't necessarily new, the technologies used to deliver it to business professionals are relative newcomers. The term business intelligence, or BI as it's commonly called today, dates back to the late 1950s when IBM's Hans Peter Luhn first used the term to describe the ability to understand the interrelationships of data "in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal." A business intelligence platform is a set of integrated tools that work together to deliver information for analysis.

For example, Gartner, Inc., the world's leading IT research and advisory company, describes business intelligence platforms as having three core categories of functionality (integration, information delivery, and analysis) and 13 capabilities (infrastructure, metadata management, development tools, collaboration, reporting, dashboards, ad hoc queries, Microsoft Office integration, search-based business intelligence, OLAP, interactive visualizations, predictive modeling and data mining, and scorecards.

While the technology itself is complex, many modern business intelligence platforms are easy to use and loaded with features. For example, cloud-based business intelligence platforms such as InetSoft require only a Web browser, making deploying the platform a simple matter of signing up for an account and logging in. Of course, there's more to it than that. This particular tool provides users with the ability to analyze data from disparate sources and "mash it up." These mashups allow for quick and easy visual analysis and ad hoc reporting tailored to the user's specific needs.

Like a spreadsheet, users can examine data in numerous ways. However, there's no need for complicated formulas and no need to examine row after row of data and figures. Instead, business intelligence platform users simply drag and drop data and view it visually. Data visualization tools display results in numerous ways such as traditional charts and graphs as well as highly visual gauges, maps, meters, and more. Data can be drilled down in an instant, allowing users to hone into relevant data based on their interests or job roles. BI tools and dashboards can be set to monitor key performance indicators for real-time insights.

In addition, ad hoc reporting makes it easy for users to create custom reports detailing whatever data they need to analyze on the fly. If you've ever tried to create custom ad hoc reports with Excel, you know how cumbersome and time-consuming it is – and that's after you've imported the latest data into the spreadsheet.

The humble spreadsheet has its place, but it may have met its match now that business intelligence platforms have become so capable, so affordable, and so easy.

Frank is the author of this article on "Can a Business Intelligence Platform Make Spreadsheets Obsolete?" Coming from a background with working on business intelligence platforms he has stressed that ad hoc reporting is a key feature to have.