11 Business Analytics Tools to Use

Data is only as good as your understanding of it. The ever-increasing types of data, and the sheer volume of it, make it necessary to have a business analytics tool to help teams sort through what the data means and how to use it. The market value of business analytics tools is projected to reach $177.00 billion by 2030, so what’s making these tools so valuable? Here’s the rundown on what these tools are, how they benefit your organization, and some of the top analytics products for business you should consider. 

What are business analytics tools? 

Business analytics tools are a type of software that helps a company gather, organize, analyze, and visualize both qualitative and quantitative data so people can make smart business decisions. There’s an overwhelming amount of data in organizations—CRM data, sales data, supply chain reports, social media metrics, marketing and campaign analytics, product and process metrics, and more. A business analytics tool gathers information from many different places and centralizes it. Then, people at the company can use a business analytics platform to view the data, explore it, and create dashboards to visualize the numbers. 

Why is it important to use business analytics tools in 2024?

It’s important for companies to use business analytics tools because these tools help teams interpret data and find insights. Using business analytics platforms, people can notice trends, identify opportunities for growth, recognize areas where the company needs to improve and find gaps in markets that they otherwise may not have noticed in the oceans of raw data. As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Without enterprise analytics tools, organizations have limited ways of understanding the effectiveness of campaigns and understanding KPIs. Many business analytics tools also come with machine learning and AI components that help with predictive analytics.

Here are some of the top advantages of using a business analytics tool:

• Cost savings. Business analytics tools can identify inefficiencies and help you maximize resources.
• Better customer experiences. Business analytics technology helps businesses understand customer journeys, evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns, get insights into customer satisfaction factors, and understand how users are using your product.
• Competitive intelligence. Companies can leverage predictive analytics and machine learning features of business analytics tools to be proactive in making decisions that will give them an edge in tomorrow’s markets, rather than making decisions based only on historical data. 
• Risk management. With governance and security features, business analytics platforms keep your data safe and make sure it’s only accessible to the people you want it to be accessible to. Especially for self-serve analytics tools, it’s important to make sure people have access to data—but only the right people. 
• More productivity. Most people clearly see the advantages of using business analytics solutions for external-related uses, such as sales data. But it’s also key for streamlining your own processes and increasing your internal productivity. With business analytics tools, you can identify bottlenecks in your business, gauge employee performance and satisfaction, and manage workloads among employees. 
• Increased data literacy. When employees are using the same central source of truth for their data, they can make decisions based on real-time data. More people gain a deeper understanding of how the business operates. Not only does this lead to better business decisions, but higher data literacy rates among teams also mean that people are making choices with the same goals in mind. 

11 top business analytics platforms of 2024

There are hundreds of analytical tools for business out there. The right platform for you will depend on your company’s exact needs, but here are some of the best business analytics tools examples on the market right now. 

1. Domo

The strength of Domo’s business analytics technology lies in its visualization capabilities. The holistic platform is built on a secure, flexible data foundation that connects across data systems, so the data you’re seeing gives you a comprehensive view of what’s happening across the business. The system updates the data in real time too—which is essential for making informed BI decisions. Visuals, charts, graphs, interactive maps, and dashboards are customizable and easy to use so users can see, understand, analyze, and tell stories based on the trends they see. Domo is ideal for marketing and advertising agencies looking to understand their clients and prove wins, as well as computer software companies that want to thoroughly understand their business.

2. SAS

SAS is unique because it’s built around compliance. This is a platform that’s great for companies that handle high-risk data and need solid governance, such as healthcare companies and government organizations. There’s a steep learning curve, and it’s not intuitive to use, but there’s no doubt it’s great at handling massive amounts of data, especially statistics, and condensing it into easy-to-read and easy-to-visualize formats. The self-serving query feature is also handy.

3. Qlik

The best thing about Qlik is how easy it is to use. Its intuitive interface with drag-and-drop features makes it simple to see trends and identify gaps in data. The platform also has AI-powered associative technology that offers insights that could be missed if you were only using queries to explore data. It scales well, too.. 

See how Domo compares to Qlik.

4. Tableau

Tableau’s business analytics solutions are vast. The downside to that breadth is it can take a long time to set up and even longer for people to learn to use—especially since there isn’t a lot of customization. But once you can find your way around, it can handle huge loads of data pretty quickly. It can integrate with almost any data source too, and it goes especially well with Salesforce CRM. 

See how Domo compares to Tableau.

5. Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI is a web-based business analytics and data visualization software that is suitable for businesses of all sizes. It offers self-service access to major third-party cloud sources such as GitHub, Zendesk, Marketo, and Salesforce. The platform has multiple product options and licensing choices, so you can choose what kinds of features work best with the kind of business analytics and data you’re looking for. Whichever version you choose, you’ll get solid visualization capabilities. 

See how Domo compares to PowerBI.

6. Alteryx

Enterprise-ready, end-to-end data analytics platform Alteryx is built for larger companies because of its quick scaling, its automation features, and its many SDKs and application tools. One perk of Alteryx is that it’s low-code: its augmented machine learning allows you to build predictive models without coding or complex statistics. You’ll also get a lot of support from the company’s active community.

7. Insight Software

Insight has a few different tools for business analytics. Its three Angles versions are designed for company-wide business analytics. Angles Enterprise for SAP, Angles Enterprise for Oracle, and Angles Professional are geared toward operational reporting, business intelligence, and visualization dashboards. The Angles products are designed to help enterprises evaluate and measure actionable insights and streamline reporting using pre-built content and multiple no-code business views.

8. Sigma

Sigma seamlessly connects with lots of data warehouses (Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Databricks, PostgreSQL, and more) as well as multiple cloud platforms so you can see all your data in a simple format. The platform is purposefully built for the modern cloud, but its interface is much like a familiar, traditional spreadsheet. The spreadsheet-like format can take billions of rows of data and analyze them with no coding required on the part of the analyst. It’s pretty simple to use, but if you have any questions, you can live chat with a Sigma support associate.

9. Sisense

Highly customizable, Sisense creates intuitive data products that get insights into the hands of end users. The platform uses ML models, AI insights, and an analytic engine to gather insights and data from everywhere in the organization, including in customer and employee applications and workflows. Installing Sisense can be complex, but the platform has a wide variety of third-party modules available for creating custom report types and presentations for specific areas or industries within a company’s ecosystem.

See how Domo compares to Sisense.

10. Looker

Looker is Google’s entirely browser-based unified business intelligence platform. For smaller businesses that can’t afford expensive licenses, this self-service business analytics tool has per-user licenses that are much cheaper than most other large platforms. You get real-time updates on your data because it’s entirely on the cloud. Embedded analytics applications are quick and easy to build too. Looker is great for small businesses, but if you’re a large company, Looker Studio Pro provides enhanced enterprise capabilities and technical support for data visualization and reporting at large scales. 

See how Domo compares to Looker.

11. ThoughtSpot

ThoughtSpot lets users ask data questions using natural language search. Users can use the search function similar to the way to search Google—no SQL skills needed. This self-serve, AI-powered enterprise analytics tool offers automated business alerts and monitoring. It’s easy to connect your cloud data and get real-time data updates with ThoughtSpot because its dynamic search architecture sits directly on top of your cloud data platform.The software has various ways for presenting data, including spreadsheet, visualization, and modeling features.  

See how Domo compares to ThoughtSpot. 

Business analytics tools FAQs

Have additional questions about business analytics software or how to choose the best business analytics software platform? We’ve got answers.

What are the benefits of a business analytics platform?

The benefits of having a business analytics platform include making your data centralized, visualizing and understanding your business’s data better, making proactive decisions based on predictive analytics, and staying competitive in your industry. Many businesses have massive amounts of data—data from CRM, sales, social media, operations, supply chain, and more—and it’s far too much to be handled manually. A business analytics platform helps teams collect, organize, and understand the data and make better decisions for the company.

What are the common features of a business analytics tool?

Common features of a  business analytics tool include visualization features and dashboards, scalable analytics modules, data mining, and integration support with other BI tools and data warehouses. Many business analytics tools also have predictive analytics with machine learning/AI components. If you’re looking for solid features in your next business analytics tool, make sure it also has drag-and-drop UI and easy sharing and collaboration features.

How much does business analytics software cost?

Business analytics software costs can vary widely. Some platforms charge licensing fees per user, others charge per month, and others are a one-time cost. Monthly costs can range anywhere from $15 to several thousand dollars per month. The cost of business analytics technology may also change depending on which features you want, how many users you have, and how much data storage you include.