"What is Tableau? What is a BI Tool?"
These were the questions that popped into my head when I first encountered Tableau a year and a half ago.
It's been a year and a half since I started using Tableau, but there's still so much I don't know. It might seem strange for someone like me to be writing a blog, but I want to record my own interpretations as a memorandum.
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■ What is Tableau?
Tableau is a type of Business Intelligence (BI) platform, a software specializing in data visualization and analysis. Even without specialized programming knowledge, you can intuitively combine various data through drag-and-drop operations to create graphs and charts that are visually easy to understand.
By using Tableau, you can:
- Visualize Data: Convert complex data into easy-to-understand graphs and charts, discovering hidden patterns and trends in the data.
- Interactive Analysis: Analyze data from various angles by manipulating the created graphs and charts, gaining deeper insights.
- Create Dashboards: Combine multiple graphs and charts to create interactive dashboards, allowing you to grasp the business situation in real-time.
- Data Sharing: Share the created graphs and dashboards with other users within the organization, promoting information sharing and decision-making.
Tableau is used in various industries and occupations. For example, it is used in the marketing department to analyze sales data, in the human resources department to analyze employee data, and in the supply chain department to analyze inventory data.
Tableau offers the following products:
- Tableau Desktop: A desktop application for visualizing and analyzing data in a local environment.
- Tableau Server: Server software for sharing created dashboards within an organization.
- Tableau Online: A cloud-based platform provided by Tableau, enabling dashboard sharing and collaboration.
- Tableau Public: A free platform for publicly sharing created dashboards.
Tableau is a powerful tool that supports business decision-making through data visualization and analysis.
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↑ I got the above answer by asking AI. AI is convenient, isn't it?
As mentioned above, Tableau is a type of BI tool, a software specializing in visualizing data.
I can hear the question, "What is a BI tool?" So, I asked AI about BI tools as well.
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■ What is a BI Tool?
A BI (Business Intelligence) tool is a general term for software that collects and analyzes the large amounts of data accumulated within a company and provides information useful for management decisions and business improvements. By visualizing and analyzing data, it supports understanding the current situation, discovering issues, and predicting the future.
Specifically, BI tools provide the following functions:
- Data Collection: Collects data from various systems within the company (core systems, customer management systems, website analysis tools, etc.).
- Data Processing: Organizes, transforms, and integrates the collected data to make it easier to analyze.
- Data Analysis: Extracts useful information from data using techniques such as statistical analysis, data mining, and predictive analysis.
- Data Visualization: Displays analysis results in an easy-to-understand manner using visual representations such as graphs, charts, and maps.
- Report Creation: Creates reports summarizing the analysis results and shares them with stakeholders.
- Dashboards: Creates dashboards that display important indicators in real-time, allowing you to constantly monitor the situation.
By implementing BI tools, the following benefits can be expected:
- Rapid Decision-Making: Enables objective judgments based on data, supporting rapid decision-making.
- Improved Operational Efficiency: Makes it easier to identify problems and areas for improvement, leading to improved operational efficiency.
- Increased Sales: Contributes to increased sales through customer analysis and market analysis.
- Cost Reduction: Identifies and reduces unnecessary costs.
- Risk Management: Enables early detection of risk factors and implementation of countermeasures.
There are various types of BI tools, each with its own characteristics and strengths. For example, Tableau and Power BI excel at data visualization, while Qlik Sense enables free data exploration through associative technology. Companies need to choose the optimal BI tool according to their needs and challenges.
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↑ Hmm, that's a rather complicated explanation. Simply put, it's a tool that makes data extremely easy to see, so much so that even an elementary school student can easily understand the situation.
For example:
Let's say you have a table with a lot of product sales figures.
Without color, it's just a string of numbers that makes your head spin, right?
But what if you add color?
You can see at a glance which products are selling well.
Like this:
Color is a factor that greatly affects human vision. BI tools are tools used to visualize data in a way that is easy for people to understand.
Do you understand?
Today, I've explained Tableau and BI tools.
I'm still learning myself, but I'd like to introduce a learning material that has been very helpful in my studies.
■ data saber
https://datasaber.world/(opens in a new tab)
This is a very popular site as a material that allows you to learn a wide range of content from basic to advanced.
I think it's content that will be useful for those who are watching this article, so if you are interested, please try it.
See you again.