The world of business intelligence (BI) is fast changing, with 2024 heralding the start of disruptive trends that promise to revolutionize how businesses use data for informed decision-making. From supporting varied user personas to overcoming hurdles in self-service adoption, the BI domain is experiencing a revolutionary transition.

What is business intelligence?

Business intelligence is, at its simplest and most basic level, a way of gathering, analyzing, and displaying the data generated by businesses. These trends help businesses make data-driven choices, get useful insights, and maintain competitiveness in an increasingly data-centric environment.

THE PROMISING TRENDS

  1. Variety of User Personas

Traditionally limited to analysts, BI tools are now designed to cater to a broad spectrum of users, including data scientists and consumers. This shift underscores the need for comprehensive solutions that seamlessly integrate data science and machine learning capabilities. Effective governance is now a critical component of managing multiple platforms and diverse uses, ensuring that each user persona can harness BI tools effectively for their specific needs.

  1. Meeting Self-Service Challenges

While the concept of self-service BI has gained acceptance, its adoption has fallen short of expectations. Users now demand prebuilt content and analytics to realize value more rapidly. To address this, BI providers must focus on delivering easy-to-use tools equipped with pre-built templates and dashboards. This approach empowers users to access valuable insights without requiring advanced technical skills, bridging the gap between data availability and user accessibility.

  1. Embedded analytics

The integration of analytics into existing tools such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is gaining prominence. This strategic embedding of BI into day-to-day operations streamlines workflows, making data-driven decision-making more accessible across departments. By empowering users with actionable insights within their familiar workspaces, organizations can enhance overall operational efficiency.

  1. Creating made easy

To enhance usability, business intelligence providers are placing a significant emphasis on prebuilt metrics and analytics catalogs. This approach reduces barriers related to data accessibility and accelerates time to value. BI solutions that cater to diverse roles and use cases are becoming imperative, ensuring that the BI landscape becomes more user-friendly, adaptable, and capable of delivering insights efficiently.

  1. LLMs and AI in BI

While AI has great potential for self-service BI, there are still obstacles to overcome. Because of the quality of the data and the naming rules, there is a great deal of worry about accuracy. Instead of only being used for visualization, AI has far more promise in the field of business intelligence when it comes to data preparation, architecture, and structure. To fully benefit from AI in BI, increase data accessibility, and improve decision-making processes, these obstacles must be overcome.

All things considered; business intelligence is expected to make significant strides in 2024. The main focuses are on customizing self-service BI solutions to meet unique requirements, improving cross-user cooperation, simplifying data via embedded analytics, providing prebuilt solutions to self-service issues, and conquering AI hurdles in BI. All of these developments work toward improving business intelligence’s usability, accessibility, and ability to influence organizational success through data-driven decision-making.

As organizations navigate the dynamic business intelligence landscape in 2024, embracing these trends becomes instrumental in unlocking the full potential of data analytics. Those who adopt these advancements proactively stand to gain a competitive edge by harnessing the power of their data effectively. In conclusion, the convergence of user-centric solutions, embedded analytics, and AI capabilities paints a promising picture of the role of business intelligence in shaping the future trajectory of businesses.

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Author Profile

Vanessa Makhoul
Account Manager at Better'fly Lebanon - Digital Marketing Agency