Easier Software Drives Data-Driven Decision Making

In a study conducted in October, 2011 for the QlikTech team in the UK by YouGov, we found that British white collar workers are held back from realizing their full potential in a data-driven workplace. YouGov conducted an online survey of 1,051 professional, managerial, and other non-manual workers in organizations of 250 or more employees.

Findings and implications from the YouGov study

• The vast majority of British white collar workers (93%) believe they deal with numbers and data at work more than or at least as often as they did a year ago, but only about a quarter (28%) have used data to discover anything new about their business that nobody else knew.
• While three quarters of British white-collar employees (75%) look at data at least once a week, more than half (53%) say they use an instinctive feel for how things are going at work, which they think tells them more than data, when it comes to decision-making (see Figure 1 above).
• Businesses in Britain appear to be missing out on an opportunity to empower their employees with data; about one in every three workers (35%) say they would be willing to do more data analysis if the software tools were easier to use (see Figure 2 below).

While this study was UK-specific, I’d be willing to bet that the findings would be relatively similar in other parts of the world. In general, tools for information work are not easy enough to use ― and thus the huge rush toward consumerization. Information workers gravitate toward work tools that are as easy to use as the technology we have at home. We want tools that help us get our jobs done without having to read a manual or go to someone else for help with each new step.

There’s a wide-open opportunity for software that breaks down the ease-of-use barrier,and that’s what QlikView is all about!