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May 7, 2021

Despite $20B Business Intelligence Market, Users Still Prefer the Humble Spreadsheet, Says Report

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 7, 2021 — Kloudio, a data process automation platform that allows you to access, prepare, and act on SaaS and database data in your favorite spreadsheet, released its 2021 Data-Driven Decision-Making Report.

Administered in early 2021, the report surveyed over 4,200 business professionals about the use of data and data tools in their organization.

The survey found that, despite a $20 billion Business Intelligence market, 84% of professionals prefer the familiarity of spreadsheets like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel for last-mile analysis—64% of whom have access to a BI tool but still opt for spreadsheets.

Moreover, those who access their data from BI tools still spend 75% of their time gathering, cleaning, and manipulating the data post-download.

The demand for data—and the insights it provides—is higher than ever. Given this rapid influx, data accuracy and consistency are critical for business teams. Over a quarter of survey respondents elected this as their biggest data challenge, regardless of company size, industry, or data access method.

Considering this priority, it makes sense that business users prefer tools in which they’re most comfortable.

“We have many conversations with people about their data usage and how they leverage data to help them make business decisions. We know from experience that people love and use spreadsheets every day,” said Krishna Bhat, CEO of Kloudio. “Despite the popularity of BI tools, there’s still a need for simple data processing and spreadsheet integration. And, as much as people love spreadsheets, there is room to supercharge them to meet the data needs of today’s business teams.”

The Business Intelligence market continues to grow at 12% CAGR, and BI tools remain the software of choice, specifically with large companies of 1,000+ employees, as the report reflected.

Despite friendly dashboards and report visuals, data teams and resources are required to bring these features to life—these resources that only the big enterprises have.

In this respect, BI tools are a double-edged sword: If you need data resources to set up these tools, how agile are they for your business users? How can you ensure they don’t become a bottleneck for your business users?

How can SMBs without in-house data resources bridge the knowledge gap for business users who aren’t as data-savvy—yet still need access to this data?

Kloudio unpacks these questions and more in their first annual Data-Driven Decision-Making: 2021 Report. For more findings from the 2021 Data-Driven Decision-Making Report—including in what tools companies plan to invest next year—download the full report.

About the Report

The 2021 Data-Driven Decision-Making Report is a Kloudio original research study conducted by in-house analysts. The team spoke to 4,234 business professionals from companies ranging from one to 1,000+ employees. These professionals worked in various organizations, including Finance, Operations, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and Management.

About Kloudio

Kloudio is a data process automation platform that allows you to access, prep, and act on your data from any SaaS application, database, or data warehouse. With Kloudio, you can connect your data sources and databases and run automated reports or create visualizations directly within your favorite spreadsheet tool. This puts the power of data into the hands of your business users and decision-makers, eliminating hours spent by data analysts cleaning and preparing data.


Source: Kloudio

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