The Power of Power BI: Top 9 Benefits of Power BI

Just as its name would suggest, Power BI is a powerful tool for businesses moving into the digital era. In a time when business intelligence and data is more important than ever, Power BI is one of the most fundamental tools that allows businesses to not only tap into data, but effectively make use of it. But the benefits of Power BI don’t stop there. In this post, we uncover the top 9 benefits of Power BI for your business.

What is Power BI?

Power BI is a business analytics service within Microsoft’s Power Platform suite that specializes in the connectivity, visualization and analysis of data. The service itself is a collection of applications and connectors that build personalized dashboards, connect data sources, build data models and create efficient data visualization. It is a critical tool for the project management office, particularly in regards to reporting on both a project and portfolio level. 

The service is available in both desktop and mobile versions. It is run on a subscription model, starting from a free desktop version to Pro and Premium subscriptions that range from monthly user fees to enterprise level deployment.

Top 9 Benefits of Power BI

1. Extensive data connectivity

With PowerBI, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to link up content from within the Microsoft ecosystem or the countless external data sources such as JIRA, Oracle or SAP, all your data will be seamlessly accessible and applicable to whatever unique data models you require.

2. Cost savings

Say goodbye to massive upfront licensing fees, support services and technical experts. Power BI is easy to use and is powered significantly by citizen development, meaning you can make your own data sets, reports and connectors suited for your specific needs. Additionally, all these extensive insights will help highlight ways to reduce risks and costs in the long-term

3. Multimodal support for remote working

We are on the move more than ever, so having accessibility to your data wherever you are is crucial. The service is built for both desktop and mobile versions for iOS, Android and Windows devices. It also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft applications such as Teams, Sharepoint and Microsoft Project, meaning collaboration with remote teams is fuss free. With its cloud-based nature, an internet connection is all you’ll need to get valuable data on the fly.

4. Personalized dashboards

One of the defining features of Power BI, its rich information dashboards not only tap into all internal and external data sources for quality data collection, it is easily customizable to meet your exact needs. With its embedded drill-down functionalities and flexible drag-and-drop tiles, teams can optimize their dashboards and gain valuable insights down to the most specific of requirements.

5. Streamlines reporting

No more wasting time collecting data and building reports. The PowerBI dashboards are not only nice to look at but can be easily published and shared securely. Teams can also schedule automatic data refresh so team members can be automatically notified on the latest data with minimal effort.

6. Highly secured cloud-based data

Power BI data is stored in Microsoft’s Azure data centers that are IRAP certified, ensuring the highest degree of cyber and data security. So not only do you get all your data in real-time, you can be assured that none of your valuable data can be lost or stolen. Read all about the lengths Microsoft has gone to in ensuring your data security in Power BI.

7. User friendly dashboards and data analysis

There’s no point in having great data if no one can understand it, replicate it and use it. Power BI makes everything simple by making all necessary configurations accessible at a single click. Its real-time capability also helps with team productivity as team members can easily work on the same analytical reports at the same time.

8. Power BI community

With over 5 million subscribers and servicing over 200,000 organisations, Power BI has an extensive online community that shares ideas on how to build the best dashboard for you. Developers can also build custom report templates through Power BI API and share them through external platforms like GitHub. When you’re scratching your head trying to optimize your dashboard, you don’t need to call up an expensive technical expert when you can tap into thousands on the internet.

9. Turning valuable data into easy actions

This is what it’s all about. Data and analytics is great, but without an effective way to turn it into actual action, it’s as good as dead. The extensive integrative capabilities of Power BI means that your team won’t have any issues gaining insights from your data, linking them to business objectives and building direct actionable activities to achieve them. Teams gain valuable insight from their dashboards, seamlessly send it through Sharepoint and link it all the way to Microsoft Project so every project action is built on trustworthy data.

Tap into the power of Power BI with pmo365

Our PPM experts are Power BI wizards. At pmo365, we’re all about making the right solution catered specifically to your needs. So make sure to book in a chat with our PPM experts to see how we can take your PPM activities to the next level. If you want to learn more about Power BI and the amazing Microsoft Power Platforms apps, make sure to check our comprehensive guide to Microsoft Power Platform.