What is Power BI - and how can YOUR business use it?

Want an easy way to take the guess work out of your business operations? Introducing... Power BI!  In this episode of Techcess, Mark Riddell explains just what is Power BI and how can it help your business to grow. This is one of those episodes of Techcess that we love to publish. Episodes that we know can be something of a 'game changer' for smaller and medium sized businesses who aren't quite so up to date with new technology.  I mean, that's why we're here, after all. We'd like to think we're keeping you informed! Ha! What is Power BI and how can small and medium sized businesses use it? The software is cloud based, and it's absolutely free. At least to start.  You can improve functionality and upgrade it to a paid tier but we think most people listening to this episode of Techcess (86) will find the free version just fine. Power BI is essentially a business intelligence tool developed by Microsoft. It's part of the Microsoft 365 services, and it allows you to connect various data sources to analyse and visualise your data and share insights with your team. Some might refer to this as a 'dashboard', which is common use of a spreadsheet.   What are The significant advantages of using Power BI? One really powerful use of Power BI that Mark and our senior team really love is the ability to hone in on specific data points within your business.  For example, you can click on a bar chart to see specific data, or use a map to zoom in on a specific region. This way, you can easily identify trends and patterns and get insights into your specific business. Excerpt from episode 86 of Techcess (Download transcript) "One of the things that we're actually doing here at m3 Networks is we are actually building some Power BI dashboards and incorporating those into a SharePoint site so that our team can see and share data across different departments within the business. Power BI can also automate the creation and distribution of reports. You can set up a report to refresh at a specific time, such as daily or weekly, and send it to specific stakeholders via email or shared through the web portal. This means you don't have to spend time manually updating reports and sending them to different team members, which can be a significant time saver." Tech Topics covered in this episode of Techcess: What is Power BI and how can it help your business? The differences between the free and paid version - and do you need to pay? What are the alternatives to Power BI? How us lot at m3 Networks can help you with integrating Power BI into your business. If after listening you'd like Mark to offer you some further FREE guidance on how you can ensure your operations technology is where needs to be, book a no-obligation free 30 minute chat with him now. Also, keep scrolling to get your free copy of the buyer's guide which will also help with all your IT purchasing for this year!   Book a free chat with Mark! The giveaway guide! Have you checked out our episode offering a complete guide to buying IT services in 2023 yet? It comes with a free downloadable buyer's guide. Check it out here. Want to get more 'Techcess' in your business? Get more valuable technology insights from m3's blog pages, here. Mark Riddell's technology podcast "Techcess" is an m3 Networks production. Mark and the team have created this podcast to help you and their clients understand how technology can help them in their industry and business, including helping them with cyber security solutions. To find out more about Mark Riddell and the rest of the m3 team, visit them here and follow them on Linkedin. If you want to get in touch about technology or cyber security, just address an email directly at Mark here. He'll be very happy to hear from you. Thanks for listening! If you enjoy this episode, make sure you follow the podcast via your favourite app. Fancy giving the Techcess technology podcast a review and rating? Click here - https://www.techcesspodcast.com    Techcess is a podcast from m3 Networks