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New Survey Finds 51% of Finance Pros Want Power BI for Data Visualization

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Finance professionals want their BPM solutions to support dashboarding and data visualization for agile, well-informed business planning.

According to the 2020 Pulse of Performance Management survey, 51% of finance professionals want their business performance management (BPM) solutions to integrate with Microsoft Power BI.

The survey--which is released annually by advisory firm BPM Partners--provides an in-depth analysis of the relevant trends and technologies in the BPM software market. This year's survey respondents expressed a heightened interest in third-party business intelligence (BI) integrations, identifying Power BI as their preferred solution ahead of all other BI tools on the list.

While BPM software helps finance teams consolidate company-wide data for agile business planning processes--like budgeting, forecasting, reporting and month-end close--Power BI allows users to easily visualize key business metrics with beautiful graphs, charts and interactive dashboards. When connected with integrated BPM platforms, Power BI helps finance teams identify business trends, simplify complex data models and dive deeper into the story behind the numbers--all in real time with the most up-to-date data possible.  

That level of insight is crucial in today's ever-changing business environment. If finance leaders can't clearly visualize how the choices they make today will impact the bottom line tomorrow, they'll have a harder time empowering key stakeholders with the information they need to make proactive, data-driven business decisions.  A lackluster BI strategy also makes it tough to maintain an integrated approach to business planning, because non-finance stakeholders won't want to participate if the data they're working with is difficult to understand.

That's why BPM vendors are investing in data visualization and actively expanding their integration capabilities, especially with Power BI. Vena Solutions, for example, supports a native Power BI Connector so users can easily link Power BI with Vena's centralized business planning database. Vena is recognized as one of BPM Partners' Core Vendors for 2020, ranking among the top-five vendors overall this year with a customer satisfaction rating of 4.62 out of five. The integration with Power BI is one of the reasons why flexibility and ease of use are cited as the platform's primary strengths.

When coupled with intuitive BPM platforms, tools like Power BI help finance and operations teams elevate their reporting and analytics processes. When mission-critical data is presented in accessible, easy-to-understand dashboards, stakeholders across the organization can make agile, well-informed business decisions and shape a compelling narrative with their numbers--making it a whole lot easier to plan confidently for today and tomorrow.

Learn how Vena combines finance-led business planning with best-in-class business intelligence for confident, data-driven decision making across your entire organization.

Check out BPM Partners' 2020 Pulse of Performance Management webinar on demand here.

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About the Author

Evan Webster, Senior Area Sales Manager, Vena

Evan Webster is an experienced sales professional and storyteller with a passion for innovative technology. He currently serves as a Senior Area Sales Manager at Vena and previously worked as a Content Specialist. He continually strives to inspire finance professionals to become strategic business partners and is dedicated to helping them automate and streamline their planning processes so they can make better decisions with reliable, data-driven insights—enabling meaningful growth for organizations across the globe.

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