Swedish big data company QlikTech International AB is trying to make itself more useful with the acquisition of enterprise data management firm Podium Data Inc. for an undisclosed fee.

Qlik said today that the Podium Data acquisition would help to accelerate its transformation from simply providing big data analytics to a multicloud strategy that will help its customers to get more value from data that can be used by different teams.

The acquisition will see Qlik “moving beyond analytics to being a provider of solutions that democratize data,” the company said. It intends to do this by making its data presentations more user-friendly, it added.

Podium Data is a Boston-based startup that transforms data lakes into self-service data resources. That enables its customers to reduce data preparation time and automate data processes. Data preparation is becoming increasingly important for enterprises as it can help them to eliminate so-called “bad data,” which according to one estimate costs U.S. firms around $3 trillion a year.

That’s why Qlik needs Podium Data’s expertise in data prep, since it will now be able to create new tools that can help customers to maximize the value of their data. Qlik said in a release it will combine a multicloud approach with a new Associative Big Data Index that’s currently in development. The index is aimed at helping its customers organize and explore their ever-increasing data sets, the company said.

The idea is that Podium Data will serve as the foundation of Qlik’s new “data hub” which will add new capabilities to its storage, data prep and metadata repositories. The new capabilities will include “intelligent data profiling and onboarding” tools, the company said. The data hub will also come with automated tools to boost the quality of data through steps such as formatting and encryption. Finally, Qlik wants to add new publishing features so data can be upgraded automatically without any new programming.

Qlik itself was acquired by Thoma Bravo LLC, a private equity firm, in June 2016.

Image: Qlik