Embedded BI and Traditional BI: Which is right for your use case?

If you run a business, chances are your company’s analytics strategy is mostly based on traditional business intelligence (BI) tools.

These out-of-the-box platforms are great for gathering data about your customers and potential leads, organizing this information into reports and dashboards, and making automated decisions based on the results.

While traditional business intelligence tools are still widely used in many industries, BI has evolved over the past decade to include a new category of tools called embedded business intelligence.

With embedded BI, decision-makers can interact with data in real-time—right within the applications they use every day.

Embedded Analytics vs. Traditional BI

The key difference between embedded and traditional BI is that embedded solutions are designed to be integrated into the business applications that users are already using every day.

This means that users can get access to analytics without having to login and learn a software experience. They can continue to use the same tools and applications they are familiar with for an improved business experience.

On the other hand, traditional BI solutions are typically geared towards internal users and all customization can be implemented by both IT and the line of business users.

In order to get the highest degree of value from these tools, companies will need to invest a good deal of time in data governance in order to ensure the proper amount of security is put in place. Providing a group access to a particular tool will provide visibility that is only appropriate for an internal group or team.

In many cases, companies have to commit to a certain level of transparency in order for the BI tool to be useful for their business needs.

If they provide too little access or visibility, they may find the resulting solution no longer meets their users’ needs because it’s too complicated or not user-friendly enough.

On the other hand, if they share too much data with everyone, they introduce risk when non-essential personnel are given access to material or non-public information.

Embedded business intelligence solutions provide a more lightweight and agile approach to BI that can be quickly implemented and used by business users without any IT assistance. The benefits have helped embedded BI grow in popularity over the past decade.

Key Differences Between Embedded BI and Traditional BI

While both embedded BI and traditional BI aim to deliver data-driven insights, they differ significantly in how users access and interact with those insights.

Embedded BI integrates dashboards, visualizations, and analytics tools directly into existing applications or workflows. This allows users to gain insights and make decisions in real time without switching platforms. It’s designed to be intuitive and accessible for all users, not just data analysts or technical teams.

Traditional BI, on the other hand, requires users to exit their primary application and access a separate BI platform. These tools often have more robust, enterprise-grade features, but also come with steeper learning curves and potential delays in data availability. Users may need technical expertise or IT support to build reports or access specific data sets.

Ultimately, the best fit depends on your business needs: Embedded BI enhances convenience and agility, while traditional BI may offer more analytical depth for specialized tasks.

The Benefits of Embedded BI

For businesses that are interested in employing an embedded BI strategy, the good news is that many benefits of traditional BI carry over:

• Dynamic reporting
• Personalized interactions
• Adaptability to an ever-changing business
• Collaboration and increased media integration
• Big Data analytics

Let’s break down each to give insight as to why they are important:

Dynamic reporting

With embedded BI software, reports are generated in real-time as data is updated. This allows businesses to more easily identify trends and patterns as they occur. For example, if you notice a sudden spike in online traffic from a certain region, you can quickly run a report that will show you which customers are located in that region.

Dynamic reporting also allows you to see how the performance of marketing campaigns changes over time. By using embedded BI software to track visitors’ entry points, you’ll have access to concrete data about how your marketing strategies are working.

Personalized interactions

Users don’t have to guess what they need to know because embedded analytics can be customized to answer specific questions.

Users can also see how their responses change the various reports and dashboards available. For instance, if you’re concerned about revenue projections in a certain region, you can set up an embedded dashboard that allows you to filter the entire report to view the information you’re specifically interested in analyzing.

Adaptability to an ever-changing business

The embedded BI software market is constantly becoming more fully featured, with new capabilities being added all the time. This may appear overwhelming, but the reality is that flexibility is a major benefit of using embedded analytics.

Embedded analytics solutions allow you to produce high-quality BI experiences right within existing software while also helping you avoid the large investment of building analytics capabilities from scratch.

This means that businesses can upgrade their systems as needed without having to switch to a different BI platform. In addition, embedded BI software can be tailored to specific industries, making it an especially good choice for companies with a unique focus.

Collaboration

Embedded BI software allows teams to work together towards a common goal by sharing access to their data.

Not only is this a great way for employees to solve problems together, but it also helps to provide transparency with partners, vendors, and even customers.

Big data analytics

With the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), businesses are collecting more data than ever before. IoT will continue to draw in more data as more and more devices are connected to the internet.

This kind of data volume can be a challenge when building analytics into an application, but embedded BI platforms are specifically designed to handle large amounts of data. Rather than creating an application that can handle significant data volumes, simply embed content from your BI tool that scales easily as you grow.

Why Businesses Are Shifting to Embedded BI

As modern businesses prioritize speed, accessibility, and user experience, embedded business intelligence has emerged as a strategic advantage. Its seamless integration into everyday software helps organizations make faster decisions and democratize data access across teams.

With real-time reporting, self-service analytics, and reduced dependency on IT, embedded BI empowers business users to explore and act on data directly within their preferred tools. This not only streamlines workflows but also increases overall productivity and data literacy.

In contrast, traditional BI systems—while powerful—can slow down decision-making by introducing friction between users and the insights they need. As organizations grow and the demand for on-the-spot decision-making increases, the shift to embedded BI becomes a logical step in modern data strategy.

The Need for Embedded BI Investments

As the market continues to grow, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to invest in embedded BI software.

The benefits are clear, and with the right tools, businesses can gain a competitive edge by quickly understanding and reacting to changes in their industry. Those organizations that don’t invest in BI software will find it increasingly difficult to keep up.

As data continues to drive business decisions, the embedded BI market is forecast to be worth $77.52 billion by 2026.

With an estimated compound annual growth rate of 13.5% over the next five years, it’s clear that companies who invest in this technology now will be at a distinct advantage as each industry becomes increasingly more and more data-driven.

So if you’re looking for a way to stay ahead of the competition, embedded BI software may be just what you need to gain a competitive edge.