Business Intelligence Connect

TOP 5
BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE
TOOLS FOR
BEGINNERS

Gitonga Peter Wachira

 Business Intelligence Connect

1
MS EXCEL
Microsoft Excel is the Godfather; the world’s best-known
spreadsheet software.

Excel is a powerful data visualization and analysis tool and the

recommended first tool to all beginners as it provides a stable
foundation into the analysis world.

It provides a user-friendly interface and basic data manipulation

functionalities, making it accessible to non-technical users.
Excel's pivot tables are particularly valuable for summarizing
and analyzing data from different angles quickly.

While Excel is suitable for basic data analysis tasks, it may have
limitations in handling large datasets or performing complex
statistical analyses compared to other specialized programming
languages.

Gitonga Peter Wachira

 Business Intelligence Connect

2
SQL
SQL (Structured Query Language) is a programming language
designed for managing data in a relational database.

It's been around since the 1970s and is the most common method
of accessing data in databases today. SQL has a variety of
functions that allow its users to read, manipulate, and change
data.

SQL is great for performing the types of aggregations that you

might normally do in an Excel pivot table—sums, counts,
minimums and maximums, etc.—but over much larger datasets
and on multiple tables at the same time.

Knowledge of SQL is essential for working with data stored in

databases, which is prevalent in many business and data analysis
scenarios.

Gitonga Peter Wachira

 Business Intelligence Connect

3
POWER BI
At less than a decade old, Power BI is a relative newcomer to the
market of data analytics tools.

It began life as an Excel plug-in but was redeveloped in the early

2010s as a standalone suite of business data analysis tools.

Power BI is a business analytics service provided by Microsoft that

lets you visualize your data and share insights. It converts data
from different sources to build interactive dashboards and
Business Intelligence reports..

Its main selling point is its great data connectivity—it operates

seamlessly with Excel (as you’d expect, being a Microsoft product)
but also text files, SQL server, and cloud sources, like Google.

Gitonga Peter Wachira

 Business Intelligence Connect

4
TABLEAU
If you’re looking to create interactive visualizations and
dashboards without extensive coding expertise, Tableau is one of
the best commercial data analysis tools available.

Tableau’s graphical representations are quite interactive and

aesthetically pleasing. It is an analytics platform that places a
great deal of emphasis on data visualization.

The suite handles large amounts of data better than many other
BI tools, and it is very simple to use. However, because it has no
scripting layer, there’s a limit to what Tableau can do.

For instance, it’s not great for pre-processing data or building

more complex calculations. But its visualization is pretty top-
notch, making it very popular despite its drawbacks.

Gitonga Peter Wachira

 Business Intelligence Connect

5
PYTHON
A programming language with a wide range of uses, Python is a
must-have for any data analyst. Unlike more complex languages, it
focuses on readability, and its general popularity in the tech field
means many programmers are already familiar with it.

Python is also extremely versatile; it has a huge range of resource

libraries suited to a variety of different data analytics tasks. For
example, the NumPy and pandas libraries are great for streamlining
highly computational tasks, as well as supporting general data
manipulation.

Python’s main drawback is its speed—it is memory intensive and

slower than many languages. In general though, if you’re building
software from scratch, Python’s benefits far outweigh its drawbacks

Although Python might be a bit complex for beginners, it's a tool that
really comes in handy as your progress within the analysis world.

Gitonga Peter Wachira

 Business Intelligence Connect

SUMMARY
In this post, we explored some of the most popular data analysis
tools currently in use and specifically the ideal tools for beginners.

These tools provide a solid foundation for business intelligence, and

each has its strengths and use cases and aspiring analysts often
benefit from learning a combination of them based on their specific
analytical needs and career goals.

As the field continues to evolve, staying open to learning new trends,

tools and technologies is essential for professional growth.

The key thing to takeaway is that there’s no one tool that does it all. A
good analyst has wide-ranging knowledge of different languages
and software.

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Gitonga Peter Wachira