A Reporting Tool is a software application that helps you generate interactive reports and dashboards. With Reporting Tools, one can build comprehensive business reports using a variety of reporting and visualization components, in minutes. This allows them to create reports for every aspect of the organization, including Marketing, Sales, etc. To analyze and improve business performance, they can report business data, develop online reports, and dashboards. Nowadays, you can go through the reports on a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
Advantages of Using Reporting Tools
Listed below are some of the key points that make Reporting Tools an essential requirement for any business model:
• Performance Evaluation: A Reporting Tool helps you evaluate the best-performing aspects of your company and contrast them with the worst-performing ones. This eventually helps you focus more on the company's weak spots and work toward common goals.
• Fact-based Analysis: With Reporting Tools, you can analyze which decisions will have a positive influence on your business and vice versa. This helps you better plan for the future of your business based on Risks, Issues, Efficiency, and other factors identified through Fact-based Analysis.
• Informed Decision: A Reporting Tool provides you with key metrics such as Sales Revenue, Lead Conversion Rate, etc. by which you can track your business’s development in various aspects. It guides your professional decisions as well as your daily activities. This helps you make informed meaningful decisions and also shows you where to invest the most time and money.
Disadvantages of Using Reporting Tools
While Reporting Tools are extremely beneficial for the growth of any business, they are not without flaws. Listed below are some of the disadvantages of using Reporting Tools for your business:
• Time-Consuming: Preparing reports can take a long time and cost a lot of money, which might limit a company's financial and logistical ability to invest in operations or expansion.
• Inaccuracy in Reports: At times a Reporting Tool is insufficient in providing a complete picture of the company or the financial standings. This may happen due to variances in the data provided, the incompetence of people working with the tool, etc.
• Neglect Qualitative Information: A Reporting Tool typically focuses on quantitative indicators (such as Customer Acquisition Numbers, Sales Percentage, etc.) of your business while ignoring the qualitative values (such as an opinion, a trait, etc.) that generate significant value.
Top 3 Best Reporting Tools for Businesses
Now, that you have understood the importance of Reporting Tools for your business, let’s talk about some of the best Reporting Tools. Listed below are the 3 best reporting tools (in no particular order):
• Zoho Analytics
• Whatagraph
• Tableau
1. Zoho Analytics
Zoho Analytics is one of the most popular Reporting and Business Intelligence Tools that incorporates modern technologies like Artificial Intelligence, NLP (Natural Language Processing), etc. to generate comprehensive reports. It can seamlessly convert vast amounts of raw data into meaningful, visually appealing reports. HP, Philips, and Hyundai are only some of the multinational companies that use Zoho Analytics as the Reporting Tool for their business.
Key Features of Zoho Analytics:
Given below are some perks of using Zoho Analytics as a Reporting Tool:
• Businesses may use Zoho Analytics to develop Complex Dashboards by combining data from multiple sources. With 100+ connections, it interacts with a wide range of databases, CRMs (Customer Relationship Management), and Analytics Tools right out of the box.
• Non-technical people, with minimal-to-no expertise in Reporting Tools, can also easily create reports thanks to the drag-and-drop interface.
• With Zoho Analytics, you can also exchange reports more quickly using secure online collaboration solutions.
2. Whatagraph
Whatagraph is a Cross-Channel Marketing Performance Reporting Tool that allows you to track and compare the results of different campaigns in one place. Furthermore, it allows you to export custom data from Google Sheets and APIs. These capabilities empower you to quickly produce attractive, high-quality reports that demonstrate the value of your work to the clients.
Key Features of Whatagraph:
Listed below are some of the key features of Whatagraph:
• Whatagraph provides customizable templates that you can use to style the report in the way you like.
• Whatagraph allows you to easily collaborate with your team to generate reports.
• Whatagraph also has the ability to automatically send scheduled reports to clients.
3. Tableau
Tableau is a strong and rapidly developing Reporting and Visualization Tool. With Tableau, you can simplify raw data into a format that is simple to comprehend. It also assists in generating reports that are understandable by experts at all levels of a company. Its low-code interface also enables users to create a variety of appealing visualizations and interactive dashboards with ease.
Key Features of Tableau:
Listed below are some of the key features of Tableau:
• Tableau updates your data automatically or at predetermined intervals to provide you with a real-time view of your key KPIs like Client Retention Rate, Profit Margin, etc. Moreover, with Tableau, you can view real-time Sales Reports, and Inventory Metrics, to quickly answer any follow-up inquiries.
• Tableau’s drag-and-drop feature cuts the time it takes for analysts to prepare and send periodic reports in half, and allows inexperienced users to use data without the help of an Analyst or IT Team.
• With Tableau, rather than delivering a static report, you can provide a dashboard that is interactive and offers more than one perspective.
Conclusion:
This article introduced you to Reporting Tools in general, with their advantages and disadvantages for your business. Furthermore, it introduced you to the 3 best Reporting Tools.
For generating reports via a Reporting Tool, you need your data to be loaded in a centralized location. In such a case, you can explore Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline platform that seamlessly transfers your data from multiple sources to any destination of your choice. Hevo Data supports 100+ data sources (including Tableau, Power BI, etc.).
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