{"id":1349,"slug":"software-advice-5pct-smb-bi-dashboard-243-sample","title":"Software Advice (online survey of 243 US business owners/managers) — 5% of SMBs report using a BI dashboard to analyze data; Excel/Google Sheets dominate at 65%","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["self-service-adoption","dashboards","bi-tools-landscape"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** **Software Advice**, *How Dashboards Impact SMB Confidence in Data Analytics* (online survey of **243 US business owners / managers**): \"BI dashboard adoption rates are very low, with **only 5 percent of SMBs reporting that they use such a system** to analyze data.\" Excel/Google Sheets dominate at **65%**; built-in platform analytics at **23%**. Top barriers: **lack of awareness 39%**, **system cost 30%**, **comfort with existing tools 23%**.\n\n**Source:** Software Advice.\n\n**Confidence:** Single-source — vendor-adjacent; treat as directional.\n\n**Caveat:** Software Advice is a software-comparison site (adjacent incentive). Small sample (n=243). Directionally consistent with BARC / Gartner but should not be quoted as a precise number.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** SMB-specific adoption is *far* lower than enterprise adoption — most SMBs run on spreadsheets. When recommending dashboards to a spreadsheet-comfortable client, the bar is high.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"barc-eckerson-25pct-bi-adoption-2022","title":"BARC / Eckerson Group (March 2022, 214 D&A leaders surveyed Nov-Dec 2021) — BI/analytics adoption at 25% of employees on average; \"stuck around 20% for many years\" per Eckerson","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-dashboards-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: dashboards for SMBs — what's worth showing, and when an embedded one earns its keep (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"caveats-dashboards-vendor-marketing-base","title":"Caveats for the dashboards brief: pervasive BI/embedded-analytics vendor sourcing; the viral \"60-70%\" stat is folklore; SMB data thin; retention claims unproven","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-20T18:03:12.098Z","updated_at":"2026-06-20T18:03:12.098Z"}