Business Intelligence provides tools and technologies to gather, transfer, and convert data into meaningful information. The business stakeholders can access data quickly and efficiently to make decisions and actionable results using this meaningful information at the right time. To remain competitive, modern businesses need real-time data access to make critical decisions. Enterprises need to modernize their business intelligence (BI) capabilities as part of this objective.
With their existing BI tools, enterprises need to address questions like:
- What business insights are being delivered by this BI tool?
- How are our BI investments improving our bottom-line revenues?
- Are data-driven decisions delivering desired business outcomes at the right time?
- Does the BI tool provide instant access to real-time or historical data?
- Does the existing BI help to discover the data patterns and forecast future patterns?
Over past decades, legacy (or traditional) BI systems like SAP Business Objects, IBM Cognos, and Microstrategy were primarily used to analyze data from legacy warehouses and on-premises databases. Among the later innovations, data visualization tools like Tableau improved visualization – but were still optimized for on-premises environments.
Modernized BI solutions are critical for business success as they provide enterprise real-time contextualized data access on scalable cloud platforms. Enterprises can leverage modern BI solutions to extract valuable insights related to:
- Customer satisfaction
- Product performance
- Operational efficiency
- Reusability of Lookml model
… and more. Here’s how modern BI solutions compare with traditional BI platforms.
Traditional BI vs Modernized BI
Traditional BI platforms focus on the underlying technology instead of the business user. For instance, a BI deployment started by creating a data warehouse and ETL scripts. The final step was to provide BI access to users through a BI reporting tool. Additionally, these BI tools are not flexible enough to scale or work with third-party data sources, thus leading to performance bottlenecks.
Modernized BI solutions reverse this approach and prioritize the users—and their business problems—over the traditional approach. BI developers can also integrate new data sources (at any point) to serve data requirements. In BI Evolution, Augmented Analytics turns the massive amount of data into insights which proactively helps to reduce impact to business. The third Era of Business Intelligence is known for Automation – the process of automating the insights to users.
How the Looker tool can modernize BI capabilities
Looker is a browser based BI tool by Google. The AI-powered tool delivers a modernized BI solution with business benefits, including:
- Scalable infrastructure to accommodate growing business needs
- Accurate data governance and insights for decision-making
- 24/7 Real-time data availability for business users through its built-in dashboard or application
- Extendible framework for future data integration
- Reusability of existing assets
Here are 10 reasons why enterprises must modernize their legacy BI to the Looker platform:
- Semantic Data Modeling
- Embedded Analytics
- Gemini in Looker
- Customized data visualization
- Data modeling
- Formulas
- Reports
- Looker Studio
- Self-Service Capabilities
- Connected Sheets for Looker
- Looker on Mobile App
- Streamline Marketing
- Generative AI and Looker
- Data Governance
With its centralized semantic data modeling feature, Looker ensures data consistency and accuracy across all business functions. This approach eliminates data silos and serves as a “single source of truth” for every business department.
This is achieved through LookML, a SQL-based language that allows business analysts to define business logic in a single, version-controlled model. LookML also generates optimized SQL queries, making data accessible even for users without technical expertise. With the Google Cloud and BigQuery ecosystem, this also facilitates the reusable data model, which can accelerate the business decision-making process across the teams.
Looker offers powerful analytics for users to perform deep data exploration and extract actionable insights. With its intuitive UI, users with varying skill sets can easily analyze real-time data.
This BI platform enables embedded analytics by integrating interactive dashboards into various business applications through APIs. For example, Looker can integrate with Vertex AI, enabling custom workflows and analytics.
By integrating Google Gemini in Looker, enterprises can now leverage AI-powered analytics for a self-service BI. The AI-powered assistant can improve analytical workflows in Looker by creating:
With Gemini at its foundational core, Looker can further improve the quality of AI models and their outputs.
With its integration with Looker Studio, this BI platform enables business users to connect with Looker’s semantic model – and then explore and analyze this data in Looker Studio. Business users can utilize Looker Studio to create reports from ad-hoc and governed data. This self-serve approach enables analysis of both governed and non-governed data.
Looker empowers business users to explore and analyze data independently through its intuitive interface and user-friendly features. This self-service approach enables users to create their own reports, dashboards, and visualizations without relying on IT or data analysts. Looker’s data exploration capabilities allow users to drill down into data, apply filters, and perform ad-hoc analysis, fostering a data-driven culture within the organization. Additionally, Looker’s collaborative features allow users to share insights and collaborate on data analysis projects, further enhancing the democratization of data within the organization.
This feature allows you to explore modeled data from Looker directly in Google Sheets. This means you can use the familiar interface of Google Sheets to analyze data from a variety of sources, including BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Snowflake, and Redshift.
Looker Mobile Application provides quick access to real-time data on the go with a high data governance setting with a built-in enterprise security feature. Business users can view, share, and collaborate with others in their preferred language.
Looker BI goes beyond conventional analytics by offering native integration with Google and Facebook Ads. Using this feature, marketing teams get real-time insights into customer behavior and preferences.
Looker’s integration with Google Gemini large language models (LLMs) enhances data analysis and reporting by enabling natural language interactions with data, automating report generation, and providing AI-powered insights and recommendations.
Generative AI can also assist in data preparation and exploration, helping users to identify patterns and relationships within data more quickly and easily.
Looker provides Row-level and Column-level security.
Row-level Security- Users can access Authorized data on reports and dashboards.
Column-level security- Restricts column level access on specified dimensions and measures to users.
How Onix can help you leverage Looker’s BI capabilities
As a Google Cloud partner, Onix has proven expertise in migrating complex workloads to Google BigQuery and Looker. Google Cloud has recognized Onix for its specialization in data analytics and migration services.
With its expertise in the Looker tool, Onix provides end-to-end offerings for customers, including the following:
- Looker foundation ramp
This foundational ramp demonstrates Looker’s data visualization and analytical capabilities. Our team of Looker experts can help with:
- Data discovery and assessment
- Rapid deployment and configuring of Looker
- Comprehensive employee training and proficiency in Looker
- Iterative cycle of refinement through continuous user feedback
- BI & data visualization
The Onix team can help enterprises with LookML modeling and develop factory models with Looker’s dashboard and visualization skills. This involves creating a LookerML model optimized for performance and advanced modeling.
An Onix customer in the amusement park industry leveraged Looker’s BI and data visualization capabilities to gain insights into guest behavior, optimize park operations, and improve the overall guest experience. They used Looker to identify peak times for rides and adjust staffing levels accordingly, and optimize menu offerings and pricing based on sales patterns, thus increasing revenue.
- BI migration and modernization
The Onix team can navigate your BI migration and modernization process using Generative AI solutions. This includes services like:
- Reconfiguring current BI systems to Google BigQuery.
- Developing an AI-powered report interpreter to explain data trends and anomalies.
- Using an AI-powered dashboard to automate report generation.
- Deploying a conversational interface for users to interact with data.
- Using AI-powered automation for data analysis and actionable recommendations.
A large American holding company with many subsidiaries had disparate BI systems across its various business units, leading to data silos and inefficiencies. Onix helped the company migrate its data to Google BigQuery and implemented a unified Looker instance, providing a single source of truth for all business data. Additionally, Onix developed AI-powered dashboards and reports that provided actionable insights to the company’s leadership, enabling them to make data-driven decisions and improve overall business performance. The conversational interface made it easy for non-technical users to interact with data and gain insights, further democratizing data access across the organization.
- Advanced analytics and intelligent BI
With its AI and machine learning expertise, Onix offers enterprises capabilities in:
- AI-powered predictive analytics and forecasting
- AI-driven business insights
- Advanced embedded analytics using Looker extensions
- Customizing Looker through integrations
Onix helped a networking technology company utilize Looker’s embedded analytics capabilities to seamlessly integrate Looker reports into their existing applications, providing real-time insights into network performance, security, and customer usage. They leveraged the Looker API to create custom solutions, such as planning tools and automated alerts, tailored to their specific needs. This enabled them to optimize and proactively address alerts, and improve customer satisfaction.
- Browser Extension – Onix Looker GenAI Assistant
- Enables users to interact with Looker report data using natural language queries, making it easier for non-technical users to access and analyze data.
- Provides AI-powered insights and recommendations based on the data, helping users to identify trends and patterns they might otherwise miss.
- Automates the generation of reports and dashboards, saving users time and effort.
A leading fleet management company has leveraged this assistant to plan the trips and to surface trend data in vehicle fleets, providing fleet managers with information like whether vehicles need specific repairs, when route changes are happening due to road closures, or where efficiencies to driver schedules can be made.
Many Onix customers have benefited from the Looker foundation ramp program to effectively implement Looker to realize the benefits of the platform, such as improved data visualization, self-service analysis, and intelligent decision-making.
Learn how our AI-powered BI tool, Phoenix can enable faster decision-making. Here’s why you must choose an AI-powered modern BI tool like Phoenix:
- 50% of enterprises struggle to access siloed data.
- 40% of the time is generally spent on cleaning and preparing data before analysis.
- 78% of business executives struggle to leverage data for improved decision-making.
To know more, contact us today.
Reference links:
Placing BI modernization at the heart of business transformation
Analyze governed data, deliver business insights, and build AI-powered applications
