Concerns over spreadsheets highlighted by research

Date: 13th August 2009

Limited companies and other medium sized firms in the UK are experiencing high levels of problems relating to spreadsheets, IBM and Quocirca have found.

A new report from the researchers shows that around two thirds of medium-sized businesses, who often put information related to company accounts and other sensitive financial data on spreadsheets, rely on the documents to make key decisions.

Despite this, 35 per cent said that they believe they have suffered a "marked detrimental impact" on performance as a result of spreadsheet use.

Worries about the accuracy of the data and duplicate information were found to be particularly acute.

In all, four in five were found to have suffered a significant problem of some sort.

Clive Longbottom, service director at Quocirca, affirmed that the information could sometimes be "unreliable" and even "dodgy".

He added: "These firms are far too established to rely on the roll of the dice when it comes to business critical decisions.

"Budget and resource planning cannot be left to chance by using systems that allow poor quality data to fester."

A total of 100 business directors were questioned by the researchers over the course of the report.