BI Trends in 2023

In this article, we look at the top 5 trends that experts forecast in the business intelligence (BI) field in 2023.

Over the past several years, the role of BI tools and advanced analytics has risen significantly. This was especially evident during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies that have successfully survived the economic recession did that with the help of BI.

Today, every business is a data business. And every business needs analytics to support decision-making. 

Deriving value from data has become an imperative for many businesses to stay competitive – more and more business strategies call for the increased use of data across their organizations.

Dr. Carsten Bange, Founder & CEO of BARC

Below we look at the Top 5 BI trends in 2023, based on the survey 2023 BARC Data, BI and Analytics Trend Monitor. BARC, a BI industry analyst and consulting firm, asked 1,823 users, consultants, and vendors for their views and opinions about the most important BI trends as part of this survey.

1. Master data and data quality management

Master data and data quality management has been one of the most important trends in BI for the past several years. Good data quality is the foundation of everything. 

Before data analysis can even begin, data must be well-organized and of good quality. This isn’t always easy to achieve, as companies are regularly struggling to keep good quality data. That is way, this trend remains and will remain a top priority in the years to come. At the end of the day, you can only make correct decisions if and when you have clean, organized and reliable data. 

For every company, master data is the key structure on which everything else is built. Regardless of the industry, the type of a database, or sources, it is the master data structure that glues everything together and gives you a meaning and context.

2. Data-driven culture

Since its introduction several years ago, the term “data-driven culture” established itself as a top priority and trend across the industry. In simple words, a company is said to have a good data culture when data is used to make decisions at every level of an organization. Data-driven culture is about replacing the gut feeling with facts based on data when making decisions.

To build a proper data-driven culture, companies need to develop and implement all the right tools and processes. However, having modern technology and a large amount of data does not mean that a company has a data-driven culture. To improve its data culture, organizations must engage people at every level, from junior analyst to the leadership board. 

Employees in companies with a good data culture use and understand data-driven metrics every day at work. Furthermore, a good data culture means that a company has a Single Source of Truth and everyone in the company is making decisions based on the same sets of data.

3. Data discovery and visualization

The third trend is data discovery, which is a process of discovering patterns and outliers by applying advanced analytics methodologies. This is mostly a business user driven and iterative process. The use of advanced visualization tools helps to digest information better and recognize patterns. 

Best-in-class companies are paying an increased attention to the visual analysis part as an efficient way for decision-makers to absorb information and act on it. Modern BI tools, such as Microsoft Power BI, are perfectly designed for data discovery and visualization. BI tools can extract data from various sources, consolidate it one place, and provide a visualization layer to help see a “big picture.”

Both vendors and clients are investing and will continue to invest a great deal of resources on data discovery and visualization technologies.

4. Data governance

This trend is closely linked to master data and data quality management. Data governance is the foundation of company-wide data management processes. The term encompasses many areas, including people, processes, tools and technologies to properly manage and protect a company’s data. Strong data governance guarantees secure, clean, and discoverable data.

With the increasing amount of data, various data types and sources, the role of data governance is essential. A proper data governance is the essential part of a data strategy. Since a data strategy is what translates a company’s business strategy into data and analytics, data governance is a key trend that will remain at the top of the list.

Compared to the rest of the world, data governance is a bigger trend in the U.K. and Northern Europe. This trend also has a higher priority in the telecom, financial services, and healthcare industries.

5. Self-service analytics

Self-service analytics is another high priority, growing trend. In simple words, the term self-service BI includes processes and technologies to help business users analyze data themselves without having to wait for the IT department to step in.

By putting the analytical power into the hands of business users, companies can become more flexible. Self-service BI gives business users an opportunity to run their own queries, analyze data, build reports, and focus on key insights in business. The best part is that business users can do all these things without having to rely on the IT department.

The idea of self-service analytics goes hand-in-hand with data democratization and data culture. More companies now have data citizens and business users, who build their own content using self-service BI tools. This results in more relevant business content, which in turn attracts more business users to self-service BI.

As the BI adoption rates will increase, more business users would use BI independently. Therefore, the self-service analytics trend will remain as the top priority for companies.

The Role of Integrated BI for better Analytics with Planning

All 5 trends mentioned above are closely knit together. Integration is a key element that goes without saying. After all, one cannot have self-service analytics without organized and clean data, which in turn won’t be possible without a good data culture.

Best-in-class companies have already recognized the benefits of the integration of management processes. As decision-making has become complex and time sensitive, often real-time changes to the numbers being analyzed are needed. 

Power ON’s writeback-enabled Visual Planner solution brings the ability to perform real-time analysis, planning, and decision making, directly a leading BI tool of choice: Power BI. This brings a new level of integration between planning, reporting, analytics and collaboration. Being part of the Microsoft ecosystem, Power BI enjoys a great deal of popularity. And Power ON’s solution brings an extra value to the already #1 BI tool in the world.

As BI trends are continually changing, it is imperative that organizations remain ahead of the curve. Supercharging Power BI with Planning and Write-back features, thus, allows for data management, real time planning and analysis, while also promoting the data-driven culture organizations need to succeed in today’s digital landscape.

GUEST BLOG ATTRIBUTION: This blog was originally authored and posted by Centida, a certified Power BI and Power ON partner. 

About Centida

Centida is a Power BI and Power ON certified partner with the combination of business and IT experience, our consultants have successfully delivered projects for large Fortune 500 companies and SMEs around the world.