I started working with Power BI in August 2018. Soon after, I recognized that Power BI is a versatile tool for both non-experience and advanced BI practitioners. Above all, I became confident that self-service BI is within the reach of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Thanks to tools like Power BI, many SMEs now have the capabilities to gather, clean and visualize data in easy steps. At a good entry price and without having a dedicated BI team in house.
The carpenter uses different knives to work with wood, and the BI analyst has many software tools to work with data. From the BI “knives”, Power BI stands out for the following reasons:
It looks familiar
The fact that Power BI uses DAX, a language known by many knowledge workers, is a huge advantage to the non-experienced user.
Different sources and many tools
With Power BI, the user is able to create ETL jobs with drag-and-drop interactions, grind the data using other programming languages like R and Python, and visualize measures created in DAX. Many technologies, all in one software.
Affordability
Especially for companies that are not in the position to afford a BI team. Power BI Desktop is free. A Power BI Pro account, which allows you to publish and share reports, costs 10.50 € per month, with a 60-day free trial.
