With the exponentially growing Internet of Things generating unstructured information faster than our ability to monitor it, enterprises are struggling to collect and process data at the speed of business while maintaining cost efficiencies. But overcoming the technical barriers to analytics is only the first step towards unlocking the value of Big Data. In order to remain competitive, companies must put insight in the hands of the decision makers.

In comes Tableau. The Seattle-based data visualization firm lets business users interact with and build their own dashboards instead of getting bogged down in Excel or using a traditional BI tool and suffering from long delays. The company’s software suite enables a wide range of customers, from micro-enterprises such as Susan Baier’s Audience Audit to government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

Wikibon co-founder Dave Vellante and Principal Analyst Jeff Kelly were on the ground at the recently concluded Tableau Customer Conference in Washington D.C. to provide a first-hand perspective on how the company is disrupting decision making in organizations of all sizes. Tableau has over 13,500 customers, Dave Vellante says, with a market capitalization of $4 billion and year-to-year revenue growth exceeding 70 percent.

He credits the company’s success to the “10x value proposition” that enables it go toe-to-toe with both lightweight visualization providers and traditional BI vendors such as SAP and IBM.

Changing topics, Kelly brings up Nate Silver’s Day 2 keynote. The celebrity statistician’s address was “great” as expected, he says: Silver explained how bias can distort analysis, went into detail about correlation, and discussed how the Tampa Bay Rays are harnessing the power of Big Data to level the playing field against more prominent teams.

Check out the clip below for the full discussion.