When a Chart Is Worth a Thousand Words

A decade ago, data analysis was a chore. Workers poured figures into Excel and then spent hours searching for patterns. That process is getting less cumbersome, thanks to a handful of companies selling visualization software that can help even neophytes turn data—from hospital readmissions to call-center traffic—into colorful, interactive bar graphs and pie charts. “It just happens to be the perfect tool that allows us to answer most folks’ questions,” says Christine Birtel, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo, where some 1,500 employees in her Wholesale Internet Solutions group use data visualization software developed by Tableau Software.

Tableau clocked the fastest sales growth, 84 percent, of any leading business analytics company last year, according to researcher IDC. Adoption of Tableau by corporations as well as nonprofits, hospitals, colleges, and government agencies has picked up since the Seattle-based company rolled out a cloud-based version of its software in 2013. The company’s revenue is on track to jump 68 percent, to $391 million this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A rival with similar data visualization products, Qlik of Radnor, Pa., grew 20 percent last year, says IDC.