Case Study: City of Charlotte achieves faster, smarter analytics with Tableau Software

City of Charlotte Business Intelligence Competition Results in Faster, Smarter Analytics

The City of Charlotte needed to turn fragmented data (Oracle, SQL, Access, Excel and flat files) into timely, actionable insights while convincing departments to adopt business intelligence. To build skills and demonstrate value, data manager Jim Raper and his team created a Business Intelligence “Olympiad” that challenged analysts to build dashboards for real business problems and compete under tight deadlines.

Using Tableau, 10 teams built and refined dashboards (including reacting to a last‑minute simulated crisis), which accelerated adoption—over 40 analysts with Tableau Professional, a similar number on Tableau Server, and about two‑thirds of departments using the tool. The competition improved analyst proficiency, broke down silos, and delivered roughly a 20‑fold reduction in time from raw data to finished product, giving managers faster, richer decision-ready analytics.

City of Charlotte

Jim Raper

Manager of Data Administration