For years businesses have relied on spreadsheets to help process data and communicate via reports generated from the spreadsheets to teams, including management involved.  For many this standard operating procedure was efficient enough and part of the culture to not be considered something that readily needed to change, even if there were more modern solutions available.  Management in many businesses are starting to change their tune however as they see the labor waters changing, necessitating some changes to compensate the changes.

Specifically, there has been a huge shift in the rising labor costs, the remote nature of many of the current workforce and an overall labor shortage.  Each of these on an individual basis could spur a business owner to make changes to the way they have their data managed, however for those who face two or even all three of these labor condition changes, the pressure to adjust increases.

Rise in Labor Cost

The cost of labor is going up virtually everywhere across the board in industries.  How much?  Depends a bit on the industry and where you are.  For example, minimum wage in Denver, CO is set to be $17.29 per hour in January 2023 up from the current $15.87.  That is a significant increase, however the average cost of labor increase is 5.1% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

While salaries for a data analyst vary depending on what source you trust, in the USA the annual salary ranges somewhere between $60-100k per year according to Coursera.  With salaries already high and rising, opportunities to change how data is delivered and managed must be considered for those businesses looking to find ways to reduce overhead, so they don’t have to raise prices to of their products and services, to help stay competitive in the market place.

Less Staff On-Site

Another shift in the labor market brought on during the COVID-19 period is a change in the location of labor.  There are far more employees working remotely now than at any point in the modern workforce.  In fact, the number of remote workers in the USA is estimated to be 25% of the overall workforce and growing by 2025 according to FlexJobs.

So how does remote labor translate to the need for migration from spreadsheets?  The word here is cyber security.  With more people working outside of the company firewall under the watchful eye of the local information technology departments, cyber security is an issue for sensitive data to be gobbled up by hackers or other cyber criminals.  Instead of downloading and uploading the whole spreadsheet or accessing an online version with full read-write access, custom software with secure access helps to mitigate the risk in a variety of ways, to help keep sensitive data secure.

Labor Shortage

Have you heard about the “Great Resignation” of 2021? In 2021 due to changes in culture at work, many employees, an estimated 45 million turned in their resignations as they were unhappy with the conditions and pay they were receiving. Well that was short lived and is officially over now.  In 2022 more people are getting hired than are being laid off and as a result finding good labor isn’t easy.  The unemployment rate is low and dropping.  Finding anyone willing to show up can be a challenge.

With a new labor shortage, many are starting to consider new methods to get work done.  The obvious answer to a lot of things from data processing to you name it is automation.  Using artificial intelligence to help automate processes can not only save money, but also reduce the need for labor.

The Future is Now

With labor more expensive, harder to find and working remotely, certainly the time to change the way data is collected and processed is now.  So what can businesses looking to make a change do?  They can consider having a custom low code or no code program created by Low Code Road.  This new program can work to help collect and process the data in a variety of ways and at a budget that will help reduce overhead without an expensive cash outlay.