GWI is a leading global consumer research platform that delivers on demand, actionable insights into the attitudes, behaviours and interests of billions of people across 50+ markets. Powered by a continuously refreshed, anonymised global dataset, GWI helps brands, agencies and media companies truly understand audiences, track cultural and behavioural change, and make smarter, faster decisions with confidence.
Many leading sports agencies rely on GWI to power their audience insight and research projects. Read on to discover how one such partnership transformed their workflow and delivered results where it mattered most:
The Sporting Struggle
At GWI, sports research rarely means a single survey or a single market. Trackers often span dozens of countries, combining syndicated data with bespoke studies to understand global fan behaviour, sponsorship impact and commercial opportunity at scale. These projects generate thousands of data points and multiple deliverables, all feeding into decisions that shape sponsorship strategy for the season ahead.
Daniel Bradley from GWI’s Research and Insights team explained that, in sport reporting, time is never on your side. There are only weeks to deliver insight that proves value and informs what comes next. “Clubs finish in May or June and by August everything needs to be decided.” This gave GWI a very short window to give their clients the answers they needed.
While GWI’s platform makes insight accessible, much of that work still culminates in complex, formal reporting: PowerPoint decks, Google Slides, infographics, Excel data pools and PDFs, produced at scale. For the Research and Insights team, trying to keep up was where pressure quickly built….
“Without automation, delivering what we promised in the RFP would have been extremely difficult – if not impossible.“
Daniel Bradley
Senior Insight Manager, GWI
E-Tabs: the Essential
For GWI, E-Tabs became an essential partner rather than optional. By automating their sponsorship performance reports, GWI removed the single biggest reporting bottleneck from the project. Charts were populated directly from data sources, templates were reused across markets, and consistency was maintained at scale.
Over a three to four month period, Daniel estimates his team spent around 750 hours on the project. Without automation, that figure would have climbed far higher.
“Without E-Tabs, it would have easily taken over a thousand hours, realistically, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver ourselves within the timeframes.“
Daniel Bradley
Senior Insight Manager, GWI
Benefits that went beyond speed
Whilst time-savings were massive for GWI, The benefits went beyond speed. Automation gave GWI a renewed sense of confidence in data accuracy that they did not have before.
With automated outputs handling charts, layouts, and updates consistently, the team could trust the results without repeatedly checking every slide. That confidence became critical on a second major global project.
“Once the initial checks were done and we knew the data was pulling correctly, we were confident the rest of the reports would be right. This dramatically reduced the need for manual proofing.”
Global Scale with Gold Standard Delivery
E-Tabs Automation proved invaluable again on a second major project for a global basketball association. The brief involved understanding fan behaviour, merchandising engagement, and brand health across thirty markets, with different surveys targeting different age groups.
The outputs were substantial: twenty five PowerPoint reports, many running to sixty slides, alongside thirty six infographics – all required within a tight two to three week window.
“The E-Tabs automated PowerPoints were a beast, without them, it would have been pretty much impossible to do this in house.“
Daniel Bradley
Senior Insight Manager, GWI
Infographics In a Sec
By relying more heavily on E-Tabs for both the reports and the infographics, GWI saved an estimated ninety hours on infographic production and more than three hundred and seventy five hours on PowerPoint reporting alone. What could have consumed weeks of analyst time was delivered within days.
Perfect Preperation
A critical part of making automation work was preparation. GWI and E-Tabs worked closely before fieldwork finished, setting up templates, defining logic, and mapping data flows so that reporting could begin the moment results landed.
“Something that we really leveraged was being able to set the templates up in advance,” Daniel explains. “We knew there were going to be additional requests coming in, so everything we could do beforehand was going to save us time later.”
That groundwork meant the team was effectively guaranteed that the rest of the reporting would run smoothly once data arrived.
When Clients Change Their Minds
Automation also transformed how GWI handled client feedback – an unavoidable part of research delivery! Narrative tweaks, late changes and additional requests no longer meant starting again. “If there were changes, we could re-run and re-deliver within the same day.” That gave us real confidence when dealing with demanding clients.
“Even more complex changes were usually turned around within a day or two.“
Daniel Bradley
Senior Insight Manager, GWI
When Delivery Stops Being a Fire Drill
Perhaps most importantly, automation changed the pressure dynamics for Daniel’s team. Summer delivery peaks often would coincide with annual leave, creating resource risk at exactly the wrong moment. Without automation, Daniel estimates it would have taken his entire team of eighteen analysts just to keep pace.
“Instead, we were able to keep delivery focused within the sports team and use E-Tabs for the heavy lifting,” he says.
Today, Daniel and his team see automated reporting as a competitive advantage, not just an operational fix. It allows GWI to compete confidently against larger agencies, commit to ambitious RFPs, and protect both quality and analyst wellbeing.
“Automation lets us be agile and reliable at the same time,” he says. “Our analysts can focus on insight and storytelling, not manual charting.“
Daniel Bradley
Senior Insight Manager, GWI
Built on Trust, Not Transactions
That reliability is why GWI continues to partner with E-Tabs across formats, projects, and client types. The combination of dependable delivery and a consultative approach gives the team confidence that quality will always meet their standards and that outputs will be accurate every time. For a business built on speed, scale, and trust, that difference is decisive.
“I haven’t come across a reporting format yet that they haven’t been able to help us with. “Whenever we’ve hit a technical challenge, they’ve helped us find a better way — often saving us weeks of work.“
Daniel Bradley
Senior Insight Manager, GWI
