The 11 Best Business Analytics Tools for Data-Driven Decisions

Does your company make use of data? 97% of $50MM companies invest in business analytics, so you should, too! You don’t have to invest gigantic amounts of money; start by using business analytics tools. They will drive your decision-making process. It will help you to succeed in any industry! Not sure what tool to choose? I will present you with the top business analytics tools. Stay with me!

Business analytics tools are software that collects quantitative and qualitative data and transforms it into actionable insights. They include a wide range of software. However, they all support decision-making processes, increase operational efficiency, improve customer insights, and drive business growth.

As told by Andy Dunn – an American entrepreneur and co-founder of Bonobos Inc.:

“Passion provides purpose, but data drives decisions.”

Andy Dunn

Passion acts as the spark that ignites your vision. But will your business succeed if you only rely on passion?

No!

You need to make the right decisions… and the right decisions are those based on data.

Top business analytics tools will help you do that. Let’s explore them!

Top Business Analytics Tools:

01 Brand24

Free 14-day trial.

Brand24 is a powerful business analytics software that monitors your brand online.

What exactly is Brand24 for?

Brand24 is designed for tracking mentions of your brand and different other keywords in real-time across:

• Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (Twitter), LinkedIn
• Blogs
• Forums and review sites
• News and other sites
• Newsletters
• Podcasts
• And many other sources!

The tool provides not only the number and reach of mentions but also quickly explains unusual spikes in these numbers.

Did you notice a spike in Nivea’s reach?

The reach is almost 22 MILLION!

The Anomaly Detector says this is due to skincare routine inclusion and sunscreen promotion on TikTok:

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes anymore and search the Internet to find the cause!

Another feature is sentiment analysis. It shows whether someone has expressed positive, negative, or neutral about your business.

As you can see above, Nivea generates more positive mentions than negative ones.

Moreover, Brand24 can accurately detect emotions such as admiration, anger, disgust, fear, joy, neutrality, and sadness, and tell which data source brings what kind of emotions.

You can analyze your competitors and compare your company to them in Brand24.

Let’s stick to Nivea and compare it with Dove:

It turns out that Dove is a more popular brand online – it has more mentions and generates higher reach.

Brand24 turns data into AI-powered key insights.

Metrics Analysis provides a neat summary of your project. Take a look at the summary of Nivea:

Thanks to this feature, you don’t have to go through all the dashboards to find what you want. All data is in one place with ready-to-use insights.

For example, you get information that more than half of  Nivea’s reach is generated on TikTok, and also this source is the most reach-efficient:

Key features:

• Advanced automated analytics
• AI-powered features: Sentiment Analysis, Emotion Analysis, Topic Analysis, AI Insights, Metrics Analysis, Intents Analysis, Anomaly Detector, AI Brand Assitant
• Deliver customizable reports
• Integrates multiple data sources
• Real-time alerts
• Interactive dashboards

02 Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense is considered to be the best data data science platform. It offers advanced predictive analytics in real-time.

It uses machine learning (ML) to help you understand and use data effectively. Thanks to ML and AI, Qlik Sense provides excellent opportunities for any user regardless of skill level – it creates and prepares data, provides predictive analytics, and automatically generates insights.

In Qlik Sense, you can connect and combine data from hundreds of sources, including Dropbox, Azure, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Excel.

Regardless of your data size, Qlik Sense is easy and fast.

What could be the biggest downside of this tool? Experts are needed to implement it.

Key features:

• Advanced analytics capabilities
• Data preparation
• Data integration from different sources
• Interactive dashboards
• Automated AI-generated insights
• Easy collaboration

03 Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a tool you are familiar with (I’m sure), and of course, it is classified as business analytics software.

It gathers and analyzes data about user behavior on your website or app. This free tool lets you see where visitors come from, from what device, and how long they stay with you.

Google Analytics reports in real time and provides drag-and-drop, easy-to-read charts.

Although this tool is great, you may need more than just your website data analysis.

Key features:

• Predictive capabilities
• Actionable insights
• Real-time reports
• Seamless integration with other Google solutions

04 Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI is one of the best-known business analytics tools, if not the most famous. As the name itself says, it is a Microsoft product.

What can you do with Microsoft Power BI?

You can quickly combine data from different sources, create visualizations, and, as a result, get interactive insights. Thanks to Microsoft Power BI, you will create business analytics reports like a PRO and understand the data easily!

I recommend this tool to large companies that manage massive data volumes and those associated with the Microsoft ecosystem.

Key features:

• AI features like image recognition and text analysis
• Quick, meaningful insights
• Seamless integration with other Microsoft products
• Mobile app available

05 Tableau

Tableau is a business intelligence system that transforms raw data into powerful visualizations.

This tool can be integrated with platforms such as Google Analytics or Salesforce. Joining multiple data sources is very easy!

Statistical analysis in this tool allows for in-depth analysis and the prediction of patterns based on current and historical data.

Unfortunately, the enterprise version of this tool turns out to be more expensive than its alternatives. But no worries, you can try Tableau for free!

Key features:

• Limitless data exploration
• High-quality data visualizations
• Connection to multiple sources
• Interactive and intuitive interface
• Easy dashboard sharing

06 Looker Studio

Looker Studio is another analytics software that supports making data-driven decisions. Until 2022, it was called Google Data Studio.

It combines data from various services such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, YouTube, Google Search Console or Firebase.

Thanks to it, you can easily track the results of your marketing and sales campaigns and monitor customer behavior on a website or app.

Looker Studio is totally free. It offers many advanced features to process complex data; it does not stand out from other business analytics tools.

Free is a reasonable price!

Because of this, it’s excellent for micro-businesses, startups, and all other companies with limited budgets.

Key features:

• Configurable data visualization
• Easily report on data from a wide variety of sources
• Collaboration possibilites
• Built-in sample reports

07 Zoho Analytics

Zoho Analytics is classified as a group of business intelligence tools designed for robust insights. It is available in both online and on-premise versions.

In Zoho Analytics, you can merge data from different sources and departments of your company.

The tool is easy to use, so you can effortlessly create cross-functional reports and dashboards.

Zoho also provides in-depth CRM (Customer Relationship Management) analytics in a separate tool called Zoho CRM. With Zoho CRM’s insights, you can dramatically increase customer satisfaction.

However, it is worth mentioning that Zoho Analytics is a more powerful tool than Zoho CRM, tailored for sales and marketing professionals. It offers more comprehensive analytics and a wide range of data visualizations.

Key features:

• Unified business analytics
• Analyze data from different sources
• Wide range of APIs
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Mobile app available

08 Sisense

Sisense is considered to be the leading cloud analytics platform that allows you to perform extensive analysis. Its many advanced features transform raw data into key insights.

Sisense’s predictive analytics capabilities predict patterns based on provided data.

Professionals (data analysts and data scientists) consider Sisense a high-speed business analytics tool.

It’s a solution for companies of any size, from startups to large enterprises. Although Sisense does not list pricing on its website, you need to contact Sisense to get it.

Key features:

• AI-powered big data analytics
• Fast data transformation
• Data visualization
• Seamless integration
• Self-service reporting

09 Domo

Domo is a comprehensive cloud-based business analytics platform. It allows users to leverage data and metrics to make informed decisions.

This business analytics tool is a good fit for most analytics use cases, such as solid visualizations, marketing and sales analytics, and financial analytics.

It also provides direct access to business data via any device and without relying on the IT department. Domo offers an exceptional mobile app experience; you are connected to your data anytime and anywhere.

Domo launches new features quite often. You may have a hard time keeping up with it.

Key features:

• Advanced analytics like predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI-powered insights
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Wide range of connectors and integrations
• Real-time collaboration
• Perfect mobile app

10 SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud is a leading cloud analytics platform and the most advanced tool mentioned in this article.

It uses machine learning algorithms to uncover hidden patterns and forecast future outcomes. This enables it to predict market changes and effectively minimize risks.

Furthermore, this tool offers integrated planning and budgeting features. It streamlines financial planning processes and improves decision-making accuracy, which is useful in big enterprises.

As it is a very advanced tool, the implementation is complex. If you decide to use SAP Analytics Cloud, expertise may be required.

Key features:

• Ad-hoc analyses and planning
• Connection to various on-premise and cloud data sources
• High-quality data visualization

11 Microsoft Excel

You may wonder what Excel is doing here…

Yes, Microsoft Excel is one of the business analytics tools. Compared to the other analytics tools presented, it’s elementary but enough for some people.

As you may know, Excel is not automated and does not provide advanced analytics features (for example, it doesn’t predict future trends).

You can use it to organize data and create visualizations in various forms, such as scatter and radar charts.

What’s more, most people already know Excel. I guess you are in this group of people. So you don’t have to invest your time to learn new software.

Key features:

• Good data organization
• Mathematical, statistical, financial, and logical operations
• PivotTable
• What-if analysis
• Easy sorting and filtering

What are business analytical tools?

Business analytical tools (also called business intelligence tools, business intelligence solutions, business analysis tools, or data analytics tools) are software that collects data, performs data analysis, and provides insights that will help your business.

Thanks to them, you’ll:

• Identify weaknesses of your business
• Solve urgent problems
• Gain a real-time view of your organization
• Predict future performance

Business analysts in data science commonly use these tools. They are widely adopted not only by companies with dedicated data departments but also by those without.

You can easily use them in your business; no in-house expertise is required!

You already know the top business analytics tools. But which ones are the best for what?

Take a look here:

1. Brand24 – the best for brand monitoring and social listening
2. Qlik Sense – the best for machine learning
3. Google Analytics –  the best for web and app analytics, tracking user behavior and traffic patterns
4. Microsoft Power BI – the best for business intelligence, data integration, and reporting for enterprises
5. Tableau – the best for data visualizations
6. Looker Studio – the best for micro companies and startups looking for free solution
7. Zoho Analytics – the best for robust insights
8. Sisense – the best for fast data transformation
9. Domo – the best for mobile access to data and insights
10. SAP Analytics Cloud – the best for financial planning & budgeting
11. Microsoft Excel – the best if you need the most basic solution

What are the 4 types of business analytics?

There are four main types of business analytics; they all work together. They can also be called steps in the data analysis process:

Step 1: Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive analytics focuses on understanding what happened by analyzing historical data. It provides insights into past events and trends, helping businesses make sense of changes and performance over time.

Step 2: Diagnostic Analytics

Diagnostic analytics investigates why something happened by examining data to uncover the causes behind trends and outcomes. It uses methods such as data discovery, drill-down analysis, and correlation.

Step 3: Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics is used to see the future and predict what is likely to happen. It analyzes current data and applies statistical and modeling techniques to provide insights into future outcomes and performance trends. Common techniques in predictive analytics include decision trees, neural networks, and regression models.

Step 4: Prescriptive Analytics

Prescriptive analytics determines what you should do next. It provides recommendations, helping you make informed decisions that optimize outcomes.

Who needs business analysis tools?

If you found this article, YOU are obviously the one who needs such a tool.

But the truth is that anyone making decisions in a company needs business intelligence tools. Making choices without data can seriously hurt your company.

Business intelligence tools especially benefit specific professional groups, including:

Marketers

They can analyze the brand’s online presence, customer data, campaign performance, and industry trends in depth, enabling them to optimize marketing strategies and boost ROI.

Product managers

They can monitor customer preferences, explore market needs, or see how the competition is doing. This information allows them to improve products and user experience.

Sales managers

They can track sales performance, customer buying patterns, and conversion rates.

IT professionals

IT departments, including business analysts, use such tools to monitor system performance and ensure operational efficiency.

Finance professionals

Business intelligence capabilities are a must in finance for forecasting, budgeting, and financial planning. Analytical tools enable analyzing large sets of financial data, tracking cash flow, monitoring expenses, and generating detailed reports.

HR specialists

HR teams can gain insights into employee satisfaction, performance, and retention.

Executives and CEOs

Top management relies on business analytics tools to gain a 360-degree view of their company’s performance. They can track KPIs and assess the performance of various departments.

What are the most important features of a great business analytics tool?

The most important features of the best business analytics tool are:

01 Seamless data integration

Any reliable tool should be able to integrate data from different sources and business systems. Comprehensive data integration ensures a holistic view of your business. Always check if the tools integrate with different business systems and sources you need.

02 AI-powered capabilities

Advanced business analytics tools leverage AI for pattern and future trends recognition, anomaly detection, and predictive analysis. If the tool is not AI-powered, it’s not worth trying!

03 Real-time analysis

The best tool must analyze data in real-time. Any delay in the analysis is not acceptable. In today’s fast-paced world, you need immediate access to critical metrics and trends to stay competitive and make timely decisions. It keeps you ahead!

04 Data visualization

A wide range of data visualizations helps to understand data. Good visualization is the key to effective insights. Whether through charts, graphs, or heatmaps, the proper visual representation allows you to spot trends and identify patterns.

05 Customizable reports

The tool should generate business analytics reports you can easily customize for your needs. For example, when presenting a report to your boss, you won’t have to search for the information you need in a maze of unnecessary information. You’ll show him a report with what interests him.

06 Interactive dashboards

Interactive dashboards are essential. They make data reading easy, and you can customize the view for your needs, for example, by selecting the metrics you want or applying filters.

Conclusion

A company without data is like a car without fuel – it stands still.

That’s why collecting and analyzing data is crucial! Complex data allows you to make decisions that will drive your business.

Which business analytics software should you choose? It depends on your business goals and specific needs.

Final thoughts:

• To make decisions without a doubt, you need business analytics tools.
• One analytics platform can combine data from various sources, giving you a more comprehensive view.
• Whether monitoring your brand online, analyzing your website, or integrating data, there’s a business analytics tool for every purpose and company size.
• A very important aspect of the tool is prescriptive analytics; it recommends what needs to be done to achieve the desired results.
• Before buying a tool, it is worth starting a free trial to be fully convinced.

Data analysis? You can do it without being a data expert; use business analytics tools – try Brand24 for free!