Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of technologies, processes, and practices that transform raw data into meaningful and valuable information for business purposes. BI allows businesses to make data-driven decisions by providing them with insights and analytics based on their data. This can include a wide range of data, from financial and operational data to sales and customer data.
Business intelligence (BI) software has become increasingly crucial for companies looking to gain valuable insights from their data. Two popular options in the industry are Looker and Power BI. Power BI, developed by Microsoft. It was first released in 2014 and has established itself as the leading BI software in the market.
On the other hand, Looker was founded in 2012 and was recently acquired by Google, positioning itself as a critical player in the industry. This article will compare Power BI and Looker and examine their main features, similarities, and differences.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Dashboard Experience and Customization
2. Visualization and Storytelling
3. Accessibility, Integrations, and Collaboration
4. Data Security
5. Data Monetization and Scalability
6. Real World Use Cases
7. Conclusion and Recommendation.
Dashboard Experience and Customization
Power BI and Looker offer engaging and impressive dashboards that allow easy data visualization and analysis. Power BI has a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop modules and features that help customize dashboards and reports. The software enables users to collaborate and share data, visuals, and insights with other team members in real-time.
Looker, on the other hand, offers real-time analysis with interactive dashboards that allow users to easily access data and data tools to create stunning visualizations and customized reports. Looker also enables efficient collaboration and integration of insights with others on the team. Both software offers advanced data analytics and modeling tools that simplify complex data sets into interactive visualizations, which is a great way to understand data and make decisions.
Visualization and Storytelling
Data visualization is essential to BI, allowing businesses to tell a story with their data. Power BI and Looker offer excellent storytelling capabilities with their pre-built tools that enable users to create stunning interactive visuals like graphics and charts. This allows users to communicate data clearly and effectively and generate insights that lead to actions that impact business.
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Additionally, Power BI has a great feature that allows for data storytelling. It is a way to present data in a narrative format to make it more engaging and understandable for the audience. Looker also offers similar features, enabling users to create interactive dashboards and reports that can be shared with people across the organization.
Accessibility, Integrations, and Collaboration
Power BI allows users to access their data from anywhere and on any device, making it highly accessible. The software also integrates with other Microsoft products like Excel, Dynamics 365, Azure, and Sharepoint, allowing users to easily connect and share data between different systems. Power BI also integrates with third-party platforms like Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Google Analytics, which expands the range of data sources that can be used. This makes it easy for teams to access data and collaborate on insights.
Looker also enables accessibility by infusing and integrating data into operational workflows, making it easy to collaborate and share with teams. Looker also integrates with third-party data platforms, productivity tools, and databases, such as Slack, Dropbox, Salesforce Course, Confluence, Sharepoint, Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, and other supported SQL dialects. This allows teams to access data and collaborate on insights, regardless of where they are or what device they use.
Data Security
Data security is of utmost importance for any BI software, and both Power BI and Looker prioritize data security by ensuring compliance with global regulatory standards. Both software utilizes row-level security, allowing granular control over who can access specific data. Power BI has dual repositories for storing and managing data, one repository is Azure BLOB storage, which stores users’ data, and the other is Azure SQL Data types, which stores metadata and system artifacts.
Looker uses AES 256-bit encryption, and like Power BI, it is SOC2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001 compliant, which ensures that data is protected and secure. Both software also has data governance features that enable businesses to manage and control access to data. This allows businesses to ensure that only authorized users have access to sensitive data and that data is protected against breaches or unauthorized access.
Data Monetization and Scalability
Data monetization refers to generating revenue from data analytics by providing clients with data-driven insights to improve and move their businesses forward. Power BI and Looker allow for monetization by providing businesses with the tools to analyze and understand their data, generate insights, and make data-driven decisions.
Power BI provides flexibility, allowing users to customize based on individual or team needs, and scale up or down depending on their requirements. The software also offers various integrations with other systems, allowing businesses to connect and share data with clients quickly.
Looker is a self-service enterprise BI that allows businesses to analyze large amounts of data, generate insights, and make data-driven decisions. Looker will enable businesses to collaborate and share insights with teams and clients easily. The software is designed to be scalable, allowing companies to grow and evolve with their data needs.
Real World Use Cases
Power BI and Looker are powerful business intelligence (BI) tools, each with their strengths and use cases. Here are the top 5 real-world use cases for Power BI and Looker:
Power BI:
1. Multi-tenant architecture embedded into a custom web app and managed by Power BI Server API: Power BI’s integration with Azure makes it an excellent choice for implementing a multi-tenant architecture, allowing businesses to manage and share data with multiple clients easily.
2. Seamless integration with Microsoft services: Power BI’s integration with other Microsoft products, like Excel, Dynamics 365, and Azure, makes it an excellent choice for businesses that use many Microsoft services.
3. Creation of complex dashboards: Power BI’s flexibility in the dashboard design, including the ability to use custom images and shapes, makes it an excellent choice for creating complex dashboards with overlapping and tricky interactions.
4. Custom table constructor visualization: Power BI’s custom table constructor visualization allows users to pick necessary columns quickly, set required aggregations, and even nested integration with third-party tools like Python and R to expand Power BI capabilities.
5. Flexibility in dashboard design: Power BI is an excellent option for businesses looking for a lot of flexibility in dashboard design, including the ability to change backgrounds, fonts, colors, images, and shapes.
Looker:
1. Convenient self-service BI tool for report construction: Looker’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and powerful export and report automation capabilities make it an excellent choice for businesses looking for a convenient self-service BI tool.
2. Custom visuals: Looker’s support for JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, allows users to create custom visuals and improve their analytics.
3. Intuitive and responsive dashboard layout: Looker’s handy filter panel and well-designed UX landscape make it an excellent choice for efficient data analysis. The responsive dashboard layout allows for easy navigation.
4. Dynamic content creation using Liquid: Looker’s use of Liquid, a templating language, allows for creating more dynamic content and improves the overall user experience.
5. Convenient report builder: Looker’s report builder is easy to use. It allows users to quickly generate and fetch SQL queries via API, making it an excellent option for businesses requiring many reports.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Power BI and Looker are both powerful business intelligence (BI) tools that offer businesses the ability to analyze and understand their data, generate insights, and make data-driven decisions.
Power BI excels in its seamless integration with Microsoft services, flexibility in dashboard design, and custom table constructor visualization. Looker is an excellent option for businesses looking for a convenient self-service BI tool, custom visuals, an intuitive and responsive dashboard layout, dynamic content creation, and a suitable report builder.
Ultimately, the choice between Power BI and Looker will depend on your business’s specific needs and requirements. It is recommended to evaluate the features and capabilities of both tools and test them out in a trial period to determine which fits your organization’s needs better.
Author Bio
Meravath Raju is a Digital Marketer, and a passionate writer, who is working with Tekslate, a top global online training provider. He also holds in-depth knowledge of IT and demanding technologies such as Business Intelligence, Salesforce, Cybersecurity, Software Testing, QA, Data analytics, Project Management and ERP tools, etc.
