The way we interact with people, shop, choose and decide on the important things in life is governed by data. Businesses with digital presence increasingly rely on data analytics to better understand their businesses, products and services, and customers. To stay competitive, businesses must embrace the interface of knowledge and digital economy in delivering not only products and services but also measurable results. Getting the right technology that empowers people and talent with data-driven insights for business decisions is key.
Among the many competing business intelligence and data analytics software providers are Power BI and Board. These platforms offer the tools to develop a data-driven culture where business decisions are powered by insights based on real facts rather than instincts.
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Power BI vs. Board
Power BI is recognized as a leader in the business intelligence industry. It offers the technology to put information and data-driven insights in the hands of people to empower them in making informed business decisions. Board is one of Power BI’s competitors that offers advanced data analytics for better business planning, performance, and decision-making.
A decision-making platform?
Board is a decision-making platform as it provides the tools to gain full control of business planning and performance. Just like any BI platform, data analytics helps businesses make informed decisions to enhance performance, increase productivity, and accelerate growth. The goal is to stay ahead of the competition, and in the digital economy, harnessing the power of data is the key. In this sense, Power BI is also a decision-making platform.
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Analytics and business planning
Power BI offers a powerful data analytics platform that simplifies complex data sets in large volumes into easy to understand and stunning visualizations. You can easily find and glean insights to share with everyone in your digital ecosystem for better decisions. Listening to data is essential in today’s business planning, and Power BI provides you with the right analytics and visualization tools so you can see clearly what data says.
With Power BI, you can easily build and customize applications that connect to data. You can also unify data from multiple sources to create dashboards, perform analytics, and generate reports for shareable insights. Workflow is automated, so you can connect to many different apps and services, and engage with customers, fast and easy.
Board aggregates, spreads, and runs calculations on large sets of complex data sets. And like Power BI, Board lets users create dashboards, explore data, run analysis, forecast trends, and generate reports. It combines user self-service and data management, allowing users to make the most out of data analytics for business planning and enterprise-wide decision making. Board provides you with the tools for implementing plans, assessing performance, and aligning data-driven decisions with the organization’s goals.
Users can create “Board Capsules” or customized applications for data analysis, planning, and simulation. A capsule contains objects that you can drag and drop: folders, reports, maps, spreadsheets, graphs, filters, and navigation menus.
Board offers a unified functionality, integrating advanced data analytics and applications with every line of the business. It has self-service data modeling capabilities, and it automates the building of data mining and predictive models. When you upload data files, Board will automatically discover codes, dimensions, and hierarchies and display data for review and editing. You can manipulate and add more data, run analysis, generate reports, and create shareable visualizations and insights.
All about dashboards
What makes Power BI unique is its appealing, interactive dashboard. Its simple, intuitive user interface is impressive. And if you’re familiar with other Microsoft products, you can easily feel at home. It employs drag-and-drop modules to help you create stunning visualizations and generate reports.
Board’s dashboard lets you see the big picture. It’s easy to use, and the UI/UX is simple to navigate. The tools within the dashboard are responsive and user-friendly. You can easily create dashboards, perform analytics, create reports, or collaborate with your data team.
Integrations
Power BI integrates with other Microsoft products like Office 365, Sharepoint, Azure, and Dynamics 365. It also integrates a host of other third-party platforms like Salesforce, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Quickbooks, and more. You can access your dashboard, data, and reports with your mobile device, whether you’re using Windows, iOS, or Android. Easy access to the tools makes collaboration simple.
Board integrates MS Office (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint) and Sharepoint in its platform. Other integrations include SAP, IBM Cognos, Oracle, and Microsoft Analysis Service. You can also easily make decisions wherever you are, anytime, as you can access data and dashboards on iOS or Windows mobile devices. It has an excellent mobile environment that gives you flexibility.
Should you choose Power BI or Board?
Board seamlessly combines data analytics and business planning tools into a single platform. It provides data-driven insights and business solutions to every business department in every industry and for every application. It also offers flexibility and scalability.
But Power BI is a leader in providing data analytics technology to businesses around the world. It has a more powerful BI platform that has a wide range of applications. It benefits from what Microsoft is known for: the impressive and friendly user interface.
If you’re still undecided on which BI software to use for your business, check out our Product Selection Tool and compare a range of BI products to choose from.