Tableau’s Steven Spano: Public Sector Customers Want Freedom, Various Options in Data Analysis

Steven Spano, regional vice president for the public sector business at Tableau, told ZDNet in an interview published Sunday that when it comes to data analysis, public sector customers want a variety of options and the freedom to explore and interact with data. 

“They want complexity reduced, and they want a tool that allows end to end self service that's scalable and it's presented in different forms. And it's accessed, whether again on-prem or in the cloud and portable and mobile devices as well,” Spano said of government customers. 

“So I won't say that they want everything, but the reality is they, I think they like the simplicity, the ease of use, and then that creativity. They don't want lock-in,” he added. 

He also talked about the uniqueness of public sector data and noted that each state has various processes and functions when it comes to delivering citizen services. 

“And so every agency has a story and every agency has that creativity, that curiosity, to be able to pull it all together and to be able to craft that story using data, right, to help persuade and convince and provide that trusted source to be able to gain confidence and trust of the people they're servicing,” Spano said. 

He described the Tableau Blueprint tool and discussed how data analytics could help agencies improve the decision-making process and delivery of services to citizens.