More and more businesses depend on their data and realize the importance of keeping it organized since modern businesses are producing more data than ever. Since there are many tools companies can use, the most prominent ones are Power BI or Excel, and certain prerequisites are essential.
A business must understand its data and determine how much data it has before it starts analyzing it. Secondly, the volume and complexity of the data are mandatory to know to use the right tool for your business. Is your firm familiar with the idea of using Excel or Power BI? If used incorrectly, this won’t be a small blunder.
In this comprehensive guide, you will learn everything you need to know about Excel and Power BI and which tool is right for your data and your business. Through this article, you will make smarter choices and achieve your business objectives with the right guidance, so you have come to the right place. Let’s get started with the basic definitions of Power BI vs. Excel.
What is Excel?
Excel is an electronic spreadsheet application developed and designed by Microsoft. Through this application, users can format and calculate their data effectively and easily without the need for extra effort, organize and create grids for impactful visualization in rows and columns, and more. In simpler terms, think of it as a giant spreadsheet where users can put their data and format it how they want to visualize it more effectively. This way, all your numbers are in one place.
Additionally, Excel provides certain tools that help users manipulate their data for reporting, analysis, and tracking. It connects to external data sources and can import that data into advanced models and more.
Many people use the Excel application for many common functions, such as SUM, MAX, COUNT, MIN, IF, AVERAGE, and many others. Additionally, other formulas can be used for more precise calculations, such as functions, cell features, operators, and constants. When users want to create graphs or feature charts, they can use Excel to input the data they need, which will later be converted into formats like pie charts, graphs, bars, lines, and more. This allows users to better interpret and visualize their data than having it scattered around.
Furthermore, the formatting options in Excel allow users to customize the layout of their worksheets through those features. For example, you can use colors, different fonts, headers, borders, and footers to distinguish between one data set and another. Lastly, in another version of Excel Macros, users can automate similar or repetitive tasks by running and using a recording feature called VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) code.
To make this sound all easier to you, if you are a beginner, Microsoft Excel allows users to organize, store, manipulate, and visualize their present data flexibly. It will enable further customization for ease of enhanced data visualization.
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What is Power BI?
Power BI (Power Business Intelligence) is an advanced business analytics tool designed and developed by Microsoft. This tool allows users to analyze their data effectively, build dashboards, and create reports in an accessible and easy way.
Power BI gives users much more detailed and stronger insights that help a business with future predictions, enabling stronger decision-making skills with revenue-driven and impactful results. This tool can manipulate a larger sum of data from data lakes and connect that data within relevant fields, transforming that data into clean data that can be interpreted easily.
This business intelligence tool is also robust in organizing your data and forming it into visual results, where users can then easily interpret data using pie charts, graphs, and maps, as well as highlight the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and other visuals. This features a dashboard that provides users with multiple reports and visuals on a single screen, making the whole process of understanding and data interpretation much easier for those who may struggle in this domain. In fact, it is so simple to interpret that users can understand their business trends and make accurate furniture predictions at a glance. This way, they can learn what they need to improve, empowering users across the entire firm.
Power BI offers diverse career options for professionals in this field. It allows them to utilize data to their firms’ advantage, making strategic decisions that enhance business performance and propel companies to success. You can consult professionals in this field with the titles of Data Engineer, BI Consultant, and BI Analyst. Or you could hire a professional Power BI Agency, such as BiExpertz, for more affordable, reasonable, accurate, error-free data visualization strategies. Usually, an experienced company is cheaper as compared to a single profile doing the work. Additionally, depending on your business’s data and its complexities, backing your firm up with a seasoned team of Power BI professionals over a single profile will drive quicker and more effective solutions without any issues.
For more insights related to Power BI, read our blog, “What is Power BI for Beginners?”
Power BI Vs. Excel
Before we go into the three major differences between Excel vs. Power BI, we will briefly overview their overall performance against each other.
Power BI is a comprehensive, advanced business intelligence platform originally designed for larger datasets. Through this platform, users can create interactive and impactful visualizations that allow them to share, interpret, and edit data across their teams within the firm.
Excel is a spreadsheet tool that carries out basic data calculations and analysis for smaller datasets. It is a great alternative for simpler and smaller tasks and can be easily used by anyone. That means you do not have to be some sort of specialist to use it; however, with Power BI, when it comes to dealing with larger and more complex datasets scattered, this platform becomes more impactful and of major help.
Read more: Where BI fits into your Data Strategy? Learn More about BI vs. BA.
4 Key Differences Between Power BI vs. Excel
Here, we will highlight the key factors which are the major differences between the two data platforms. Through this, you will better understand which platform is needed for your business best.
1. Data Volume and Handling
Power BI
When it comes to data handling and data volume, Power BI is designed to handle giant datasets with millions of rows and columns. This is suitable for large corporate industries and businesses requiring complex data analysis. Power BI can connect directly to data lakes, warehouses, databases, and cloud data sources, where it can extract useful data for your business, initially causing the datasets or volume of data to be large at first glance. Power BI then later transforms that scattered-looking data into a more sophisticated layout for users to interpret and understand better.
That data can later be transformed and manipulated easily by users. Making Power BI a strong platform for gaining high-level insights that span across the entire organization.
Excel
Excel is designed for smaller datasets consisting of no more than a thousand rows and columns. This platform is ideal for smaller or start-up firms that want to keep their data together in a cloud-based platform that is organized and easy to edit. Similar to Power BI, Excel allows data visualization through functions, charts, and tables. However, this can be applied to smaller datasets.
But do not let this fact stop you from using Excel. This platform shines for Ad-hoc analysis, Exploring data on a smaller scale without complex modeling.
2. Data Complexity
Power BI
Since Power BI handles larger volumes of data and organizes it all into impactful insights for users to interpret easily, this Business Intelligence tool is more advanced in modeling, provides complex calculations, and offers smarter predictive analysis capabilities for deeper impactful and effective insights.
Power BI collects data from several datasets, providing storage from data lakes, warehouses, and other platforms, allowing you to convert that complex scattered data that may seem unrelated but is ultimately related and will help boost your business’s overall performance. So, no matter how scattered and dense your data may seem, Power BI can sort that out and make it look all simple through easy visuals such as graphs, bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, and more.
Excel
Excel offers more basic and easier-to-use functions than Power BI. On this platform, users can carry out basic calculations, simple data manipulation, and formulas. Since a smaller volume of data can be manipulated in Excel, the overall calculation process is easier.
This platform was designed to manipulate basic and simple data. And that data should be in the same field or under one database to extract from in order to get sound and accurate results. It can be said that Excel uses more manual input than Power BI, which practically does everything for you. It is just the initial part where the data extraction and assembly part comes in, and it is slightly more technical but easier.
Learn more: Everything You Need to Know: What is a Data Lake?
3. Visualization
Power BI
Power BI provides an interactive, data-rich, smart set of visuals that can include graphs for all kids, such as lines, bars, charts, and more. These further include custom visuals enabling a deeper exploration of data. The best thing about Power BI’s data visualization process is that the interpretation process is simple and effective, allowing users and non-tech-savvy users to understand that data as well and make impactful and efficient decisions for their business performance.
Power BI features an easy drag-and-drop interface, allowing users to create interactive and simplified visualizations easily without any hassle. This also helps in exploring real-time data, effectively filtering data according to relevance, and drilling it down to a targeted data subset. Visualization is one of the strong features included in Power BI. Lastly, this platform is a sublime tool for further data evaluation, exploration, and analysis because of its dynamic nature.
Excel
Excel does a similar job but is slightly toned down. It offers basic charts and graphs with limited interactivity or customization options. While Excel offers charts and graphs, they are more suitable for limited or smaller datasets. Additionally, they lack the interactivity features that Power BI does.
However, Excel has limited interactive elements, such as slicers and timelines, but they are not as dynamic as those in Power BI. Power BI is much more advanced in this field, and visuals are the stronger feature of the two.
4. Collaboration
Power BI
Power BI is designed for easy and effective collaboration. This means that multiple users can access, share, and analyze data from the results it provides in real-time. This offers the most accurate, effective, and impactful insights relevant to current business trends. Moreover, this Business Intelligence platform performs cloud-based services that easily allow users to share insights within the firm. Here comes the best part: Power BI enables users to set up data alerts that can be triggered when certain data points meet specific criteria. This is handy when businesses want to monitor their operations in real-time.
Excel
The collaborative features in this data platform are limiting. While users can share spreadsheets with data visuals with one another, they still offer limited collaboration between users. Excel does offer co-authoring features through OneDrive, but it is still not as strong or effective as Power BI.
Helpful read: Everything You Need to Know About Data Mining.
Advantages: Power BI Vs. Excel
While it may not be fair to compare the two, we will still do that for you anyway because many businesses get confused about what to use for their firm’s data.
Power BI is of major importance in this fast-paced technological world. While both Excel and Power BI are strong data analysis tools, Excel has limitations compared to Power BI. Here is why:
Interactive Visuals
In summary, Power BI includes dynamic and linked interactive visuals. Other users cannot fiddle with or make any changes to this data; however, they can navigate between the visuals for deeper explorations. These interactive visualization features allow users to generate effective and deeper insights that can directly benefit their business’s progress.
Handles Larger Datasets
This powerful platform was designed and built for larger data, whether structured or unstructured, scattered or organized. It can organize a large volume of data from several sources instantly, enabling enterprise-wide analytics. With this large data, it flawlessly converts it into understandable and comprehensive insights.
Real-Time Data Insights
Power BI connects users to live or current data sources, allowing for instant and real-time analytics and dashboards. As new data comes in, the dashboards automatically refresh and change to the live status. This way, users and corporations always have updated and live results right in front of them.
Learn how to implement a successful BI strategy.
Advantages: Excel Vs. Power BI
Although Excel does not seem as advanced as Power BI, it still offers easy customization, flexibility, and ease of use. Because of its user-friendly nature, anyone, whether a startup firm or a small business, can use this platform for their business. However, those firms will not benefit from interactive visualization or real-time insights. However, to back this up, small firms or start-up businesses may not need such advanced strategies for their data. Here are a couple more reasons why users would prefer Excel over Power BI:
Easy to Use
Compared to Power BI, Excel is easier to work with and use. This means that you do not have to be tech-savvy to operate this platform. The spreadsheet interface is also simple to understand, while Power BI can be a hassle, especially for beginners.
Formatting
Users have complete control over the formatting process in Excel, such as the cell margins, conditional formatting, text wrapping, and other advanced methods. The formatting method in Power BI is limited.
Customization
With Excel, you have a free hand when it comes to customization. It offers high flexibility, and users have complete control over the styling, formatting, and other graphical elements, such as data arrangement. Users can tailor their spreadsheets according to their needs and customize them as they like, for example, based on color, font, size, and more. Power BI offers more of a predefined template, meaning you cannot change or manipulate that. It will remain as it is.
Macros and Functionality
Excel is strong with its built-in functions and the possibility of using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), which gives Excel advanced programmability that Power BI lacks.
Familiarity
Excel has been around for several years. It is so old that users and businesses will be more familiar with It than with Power BI. People who already know the basics of Excel can easily learn more about its updates and so on, meaning that they will know all the shortcuts and features that it offers. However, Power BI will require much more advanced learning and understanding.
Compatibility
Excel is the most compatible office software. Users can share their Excel sheets with others hassle-free. On the contrary, Power BI is less compatible with editing or sharing because it is fixed. While the whole enterprise can view that real data simultaneously, they cannot easily share it.
More to know: 10 Hidden Areas Holding Back Your BI Data Strategy.
Which one to Choose? Power BI or Excel?
While both Power BI and Excel have advantages, Power BI offers a more advanced service for the enterprise world and large industries than Excel. However, Excel is accessible and easy to use and can be used and applied to smaller or startup businesses. It also depends on the business’s data sets, their complexity, and what visuals you need to make better judgments with your firm’s data.
So, should you choose Power BI or Excel?
The answer to this all depends on your business’s requirements and the unique analysis you need from your data.
When to Choose Power BI?
- Your business enterprise has large datasets from various sources and needs to be organized, whether scattered, filtered, raw, or structured data.
- When your business needs immediate solving, you have to identify targeted patterns to get the best insights error-free and quickly and make fast and precise decisions.
- Your enterprise or business requires easy-to-interpret results in the form of easy data visualizations so you can explore different angles for your data.
- You need to share these insights quickly and instantly work on those terms with others within the same organization.
These are the most prominent reasons why a firm would instantly opt for Power BI over Excel, and in this case, Power BI would be the best option. Since it can model large datasets, enable more in-depth analysis, and create dynamic and simplified visuals for easy interpretation.
When to Choose Excel?
- A spreadsheet interface is enough for you to handle and understand that data for your business.
- If you are a start-up business or a small establishment.
- You prefer customizable and flexible formats for your data style.
- Is compatible with other Office tools.
- Your business does not have large volumes of data.
If these reasons match your business requirements, then Excel should be your first option. While it lacks some of the Power BI’s advanced and robust strategies and techniques, small firms can still benefit from its customizable, versatile, and productive features.
Learn more: How AI is Shaping the Business World.
Now You Know
Although Power BI is preferable based on advanced technology and visuals, both tools are still effective when it comes to data analysis. It all comes down to your firm’s needs and preferences.
While Power BI is built for larger datasets, that in itself should be a sound fact for you to understand what your business needs. If you do not have a pile of scattered data in various forms, then you wouldn’t really need Power BI. Excel should do the trick. However, understanding the facts between the two can give you a proper understanding. After reading this comprehensive article, which was very much simplified for professionals and beginners, you will not know which platform to use for what reason and on what basis.
If you are struggling with your data and unable to grasp the advanced techniques of Power BI, BiExpertz can solve your issues. We offer several services within this diverse and advanced data analysis platform. When you work with us, you do not have to worry about your enterprise data. Leave the data to us. We will hand over the simplified, interactive visuals to you.
FAQ’S
What is Power BI mainly used for?
Power BI is mainly used for interactive data visualization, error-free live results, and reporting. It organizes large sets of unorganized and scattered data into impactful visuals for effective and quick decision-making.
Is Power BI replacing Excel?
No, not really. Businesses still use Excel to date, and there is no reason for Power BI to replace Excel. Excel offers many features that Power BI lacks, such as customization, flexible formatting, and comparability, and is more familiar among people in general. Power BI has an advantage when it comes to sharing, collaborating dashboards, and visualization.
Why choose Power BI over Excel?
You should choose Power BI when your firm’s datasets are large and range from various sources. Similarly, you should choose it when your firm needs immediate results and quick insights through easy visuals. Excel is best to use when your dataset is small and requires flexible and customized results.
Can I convert Excel to Power BI?
Yes, you can convert your Excel files to the Power BI service, and here is how:
- Login to “My Workspace” and select the desired file
- Click Report
- Select Excel
- Upload the selected file
- Drag and drop or browse to the Excel file location
- Now you have a Financial Sample semantic model