The Total Economic Impact™ Of Qlik Cloud Analytics™

Cost Savings and Business Benefits Enabled by Qlik Cloud Analytics

A Forrester Total Economic Impact Study Commissioned by Qlik®, January 2024

Modern organizations run on information. The efficacy of marketing campaigns, sales campaigns, product manufacturing, product distribution, internal and external communication, and the ability to adjust these aspects according to changing circumstances, all hinge on the right people having the right information at the right time. Getting this information is more easily said than done; often, organizational data is siloed by region or business section. Employees have to spend valuable time finding, organizing, and analyzing this data, only for business leaders to find themselves operating on outdated information anyway.

Qlik provides dynamic, AI-enabled analytics and business intelligence with both on-premises solutions and its cloud platform. Qlik can collect, aggregate, and organize data from across an organization, enabling intuitive visualization of data. Its associative engine further enables insights and discovery by allowing users to quickly search and organize their data without being limited by pre-aggregation or predefined queries.

Qlik commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Qlik Cloud Analytics. The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Qlik Cloud Analytics on their organizations.1

To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed four representatives with experience using Qlik Cloud Analytics. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that is a global organization with $5 billion in revenue and 5,000 total employees.

Interviewees said that prior to using Qlik Cloud Analytics, their organizations were limited by on-premises solutions. Some used on-premises Qlik, while others had siloed, legacy business intelligence (BI) solutions from other organizations. This frequently led to missed opportunities due to inadequate visualization and analysis of data, as well as costs from manual employee effort spent on trying to process data and ongoing costs to support legacy solutions through maintenance and subscription fees.

After the investment in Qlik Cloud Analytics, the interviewees were able to significantly streamline several manual processes concerned with and based on previously inaccessible data and improve their ability to quickly gather information to inform business decisions. Key results from the investment include improved revenue, saved employee time, and reduced total cost of ownership on legacy solutions.

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Return on investment (ROI)

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Net present value (NPV)

Key Findings

Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:

  • Improvement in revenue gain due to better decision-making. Because it accesses once-siloed, inaccessible data and can process and act on that data without requiring time-consuming manual data analysis work first, the composite organization incrementally boosts its revenue year-over-year due to Qlik Cloud Analytics. Qlik’s automation and alerting capabilities play a large role in the composite organization’s ability to keep up with new data. Forrester’s analysis determined that the composite organization experiences a risk-adjusted $620,000 in revenue gains over the course of the three-year analysis.

For , this benefit could be worth over three years.

  • Time savings of 35% on data analysis. Qlik Cloud Analytics’ visualization, aggregation, and organization of data, along with its associative engine eliminating restrictions present in Structured Query Language (SQL)-based solutions, makes it easier for data analysts and higher-level employees to realize insights and conduct analyses. Forrester estimates this time savings to be 35% by Year 3 of the investment, saving the composite organization a three-year, risk-adjusted total of $1.1 million for the composite organization.

For , this benefit could be worth over three years.

  • Time savings of 50% on data preparation tasks. The composite organization’s other data analysis employees realize further time savings by eliminating more rote, manual data aggregation and processing work. This includes the automation of data reporting and dashboards, along with streamlining tasks relying on once-elusive data like filling out financial reports. By Year 3, these time savings amount to 50% with the composite organization saving a three-year, risk-adjusted $2.5 million.

For , this benefit could be worth over three years.

  • Legacy system savings of 100%. Qlik Cloud Analytics enables the composite organization to fully move its data analysis and processing over to the cloud, allowing it to retire more of its legacy systems each year. By Year 3, 100% of legacy system maintenance cost and subscription costs are eliminated, leading to a risk-adjusted, three-year total of $2.1 million for the composite organization.

For , this benefit could be worth over three years.

Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:

  • Improved employee experience. Qlik’s ease of use compared to other solutions, along with the elimination of various manual, time-consuming tasks associated with legacy or on-premises tools, makes related job functions significantly easier and less frustrating for employees.
  • Increased data literacy. Interviewees reported that Qlik Cloud Analytics provides employees with user-friendly access to data, promoting a deeper understanding of key performance metrics and improving the data literacy of their employee base.
  • Potential of additional features. Interviewees noted that Qlik had additional features they had not yet adopted, including capabilities like machine learning, which would be beneficial to them in the future.

Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:

  • Ongoing annual subscription and professional services fees of $966,000. These costs are based on the total number of Qlik users, total usage of Qlik, and a flat fee for professional services as-needed.

For , this cost could be over three years.

  • Implementation effort and training costs of $185,000. This assumes a small team working with professional services to transition to Qlik Cloud Analytics, as well as training for employees actively using Qlik.

For , this cost could be over three years.

  • Ongoing data flow management costs of $916,500. To make use of Qlik’s data insights, the composite organization dedicates resources to manage the flows of data into and out of Qlik.

For , this cost could be over three years.

The representative interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $6.4 million over three years versus costs of $2.1 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $4.3 million and an ROI of 209%.

could experience benefits of over three years versus costs of , adding up to an NPV of and an ROI of 0%.

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Legacy BI costs eliminated by Year 3

“The thing I think Qlik does better than other tools is the association of data. In other tools, you have different data tables that are joined together to create a cohesive view, but they’re much more fragmented in their applications than Qlik is. ... With the associative engine, if you make a selection in the application, as long as you’ve done your data modeling in a way that makes sense, then everything else in the application filters along with it.”

— Data engineer, industrial supply

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Key Statistics

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    Return on investment (ROI)

    0%
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    Benefits PV

  • icon icon

    Net present value (NPV)

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    Payback (in months)

Benefits (Three-Year)

Improved revenue via better decision-making Time savings on data analysis Report, dashboard, and finance preparation time savings Reduced total cost of ownership

TEI Framework And Methodology

From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in Qlik Cloud Analytics.

The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that Qlik Cloud Analytics can have on an organization.

  1. Due Diligence

    Interviewed Qlik stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to Qlik Cloud Analytics.

  2. Interviews

    Interviewed four representatives at organizations using Qlik Cloud Analytics to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.

  3. Composite Organization

    Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.

  4. Financial Model Framework

    Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.

  5. Case Study

    Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.

Disclosures and Disclaimers

Readers should be aware of the following:

This study is commissioned by Qlik and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.

Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Qlik Cloud Analytics. For the interactive functionality using Configure Data/Custom Data, the intent is for the questions to solicit inputs specific to a prospect's business. Forrester believes that this analysis is representative of what companies may achieve with Qlik Cloud Analytics based on the inputs provided and any assumptions made. Forrester does not endorse Qlik or its offerings. Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this model, Qlik and Forrester Research are unable to accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the information contained herein. The interactive tool is provided ‘AS IS,’ and Forrester and Qlik make no warranties of any kind.

Qlik reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.

Qlik provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.

Consulting Team:

Sam Sexton

Matt Dunham

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