
When it comes to information-gathering and analytics in the current corporate landscape, the biggest trend is the use of business intelligence and big data tools. Traditionally a system like Microsoft Excel would be used to create sheets of data, while employees look for patterns. Now, many of these processes are becoming automated and additional tools are being used to take these analytics to a new level.
Recently, Virtualization Review covered a handful of announcements from Microsoft about a new Analytics Platform System. The company makes the case that leveraging big data offers a number of opportunities, but has also been met with hype and rumor. One of these is the belief that in order to manipulate big data successfully, companies need to hire a new breed of data scientists.
Microsoft, however, disagrees. With the growing impact of big data, more average users need to find a way to harness this process. Organizations should not have to hire a data scientist for this process. This is especially true when you consider that many of the tools used to compile this information are used by average employees, like the Office business suite.
“As a prime example, Microsoft aims to enable the average user to use Excel in conjunction with Power BI to translate regular rows of data into visual, actionable assets,” the article reads.
Essentially, this is a simpler way of looking at business intelligence and keep a popular system like Excel as part of the equation.
With the help of an Excel consulting firm, any organization will be able to improve how it uses the spreadsheets.