Data is the new oil. But unlike oil, it's a resource that never runs dry. Eighty percent of global enterprise leaders recognize the power of data-driven decision-making to stay ahead of the competition, yet only a quarter of top companies are truly data-driven.
So how can businesses unlock the value hidden within their data?
The answer lies in business intelligence (BI) solutions. BI is the catalyst for transforming raw data into actionable insights. A BI solution can be central to staying forward-thinking, appropriately reactive, and most importantly, profitable. BI capabilities can help you consolidate multiple data sources, analyze data with advanced analytics and automate reports to improve visibility across the business and make informed decisions.
This article explores the synergy between NetSuite, the world's leading cloud-based finance system, and Power BI, the most widely used BI tool to provide insight into how integrating these solutions can benefit your business and introduce the options available.
Let’s dive deeper to understand:
- What is business intelligence
- What is Microsoft’s Power BI and its advantages
- How Microsoft Power BI connects to NetSuite
- What pre-built Power BI solutions exist for NetSuite
Before we explore the power of connecting NetSuite with the world’s leading BI tool, let’s first cover what business intelligence is.
What is business intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) transforms masses of complex business data into easily understandable information.
Whether you work in finance, operations or management, with BI you can answers difficult, critical questions quickly and accurately, based on real-time data. BI introduces a combination of reports and processes with an interface that makes it easier to identify any gaps in data and uncover any hidden patterns. If implemented correctly, not only does it enable your senior team to access critical information, but it also empowers your entire organization to notice any trends or performance issues.
BI tools often access historical data that brings awareness to trends and potential errors. This is particularly important for businesses dealing with multiple payment currencies – a BI tool would give you the ability to assess the impacts of working with multiple currencies, react to any errors and address future implications.
Ultimately, with BI driving strategic insights, you can work out the true cost of your services and products.
We understand what commitment is needed for a BI implementation within a business, so when determining which connector to use and whether to build or buy a BI solution, you should consider the following questions:
- Data sources: What data sources do you need to connect to?
- Internal expertise: Who will be setting it up internally?
- Pre-built vs. custom: Should you choose a pre-built out-of-the-box solution or build your own?
What is Microsoft Power BI?
Microsoft Power BI is the world’s most popular business intelligence tool. It’s an intuitive, cloud-based data visualization platform with a user-friendly interface similar to Excel. With Power BI, you can create dynamic reports and dashboards to track business performance, spot trends, gauge your business’s health, and answer any questions your stakeholders might have.
Why Power BI?
- 97% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Power BI for its robust capabilities
- Gartner consistently ranks Power BI as a #1 leader in the BI and analytics market
Power BI has proven itself to be a most valuable enterprise-wide reporting tool. It is designed to integrate with a range of connectors to access your data warehouse (including NetSuite, or for example Salesforce) to drive insights by spotting trends which might have previously slipped through the cracks.
To maximize value, Power BI integrations can require investment and expertise from data consultants to implement and set up reports to drive insights.
What are the advantages of Power BI?
Power BI excels in:
- Data integration: The tool has capabilities to easily integrate and report on practically every major database, beyond the Microsoft stack. This means you can pull data from your data warehouse, no matter the platform, all into one reporting environment.
- Data modeling: Power BI hosts the capabilities for unlimited joins to facilitate the same sequential flow of transactions in your ERP system, meaning you can unlock key segments of information for end-to-end processes.
- Data visualization: With 30+ visualization options, the tool supports advanced analytics to view your data in a range of formats including pivot tables, line and bar charts. This means you can view your data in a manageable way to drive actionable insights from large data sets.
- AI-driven insights: Power BI takes things up a notch by integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning. This means you get advanced analytics like predictive insights, automated data prep, and the ability to spot trends and anomalies in your data. All of this helps you make more informed, accurate decisions.
- Scalability: Power BI is scalable for small businesses and large enterprises. It grows with your business without any infrastructure worries and performs consistently regardless of data volume or user count.
How does Microsoft Power BI connect to NetSuite?
With third-party connectors, Power BI can connect to a range of data sources. One common way to connect Power BI to NetSuite is through Suite Analytics Connect also known as ODBC connector.
It is important to choose a Power BI connector to NetSuite that preserves data integrity and quality. When deploying a third-party connector to transform data, consider performance, reliability, and design.
Introducing pre-built Power BI solutions for NetSuite.
Pre-built Power BI solutions have changed reporting capabilities and what’s possible to report on. You can now access insights and drive results which were once reserved for larger businesses, without needing to hire skilled developers to build your BI solutions from scratch.
This is where ZoneReporting comes in – it's a leading example of a pre-built Power BI solution for NetSuite. ZoneReporting offers an out-of-the-box consolidated reporting platform with pre-built solutions for enhanced reporting capabilities. The tool has been intentionally built by CFOs and COOs who understand the tough questions that need to be answered.
With a bi-directional connection between Power BI and your NetSuite ERP, data can be pulled in and connected with other data sources to drive reports - and the implementation happens in weeks not months. ZoneReporting’s three-step process makes this happen through:
- Reconstructing ERP data from NetSuite
- Enhancing data through pre-built reports
- Leveraging 350+ prebuilt connectors to integrate additional key data sources
Why choose a pre-built BI solution like ZoneReporting?
You get a single enterprise-wide reporting platform.
With native integration, there is no additional requirement for 3rd-party connectors such as ODBC or a requirement to purchase NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Connect. You can access all your data sources in one reporting tool i.e. Salesforce, Google Analytics, Microsoft Stack). As data refreshes automatically, you are looking at the most up-to-date data in your reports to drive impactful insights.
You save both time and money.
With a pre-built solution, less time and expenditure are spent on building and maintaining data-warehousing activities with pre-built reports based on common business requirements.
You get pre-built reports that provide significant and actionable business insights.
With 200+ customizable reports, business insight can be delivered on day one of being live. Whether you are looking for financial, supply chain, SaaS, Amazon, billing and revenue or CRM reports, ZoneReporting has a pre-built solution for you. Plus, using Power BI’s machine learning capabilities, you can create specific reports for your unique business requirements.
Real-time NetSuite data in Power BI for accurate reporting.
Accessing live business data from ERP, CRM and other tools in a manageable, readable form can empower your business to make strategic decisions and future-proof your organization. The pre-built BI solution ZoneReporting, combining the Microsoft’s Power BI tool and the No. 1 cloud ERP, NetSuite through a bi-directional connection ensures that your business reports always reflect the latest data from NetSuite. This real-time visibility empowers your finance, management and operations teams to:
- Identify trends quickly
- Make evidence-based, informed decisions
- Improve forecasting
- Optimize operations
Want to see how ZoneReporting can help your teams save time on manual reports and automate everything in Power BI with pre-built reports? Book a personalized demo or explore ZoneReporting at your own pace with our interactive product tour.
