Why you shouldn’t ditch the EXCEL just yet

Why EXCEL is still relevant at 40

Very much unlike software of this age, Excel is 40 years old and still very much relevant; an inexpensive tool that have served millions of businesses faithfully in making adhoc analysis of data, its storage and creation of simple models. Excel helps in sorting, filtering, grouping, and is best for creation of tables and graphs to visualize trends and patterns.

It’s been so long and as you will expect, bigger data, more complex functions, have become part of more businesses as they begin to realize operations can cover more locations. Even cloud-based options to Excel- Google sheets, Zoho sheet, WPS Office Spreadsheet, and others do not offer the best solution to risk of human error, performance issues, integration with business applications, and collaboration work. For the sake of argument, I can give you more reasons why Excel is not optimal for large business critical data- but have your businesses the chance to become big enough or you are about to stifle it with premium you do not need?

With its 1,048,576 rows limit, 16,384 columns per sheet, a cell character limit of 32,767 and a considerable workfile size character limit of 32,767 and a considerable workfile size, you might want to delay complicating your business as to prepare well for that leap. To prepare for this leap you do need a gradualist approach to avoid confusion or bloated operational and human resources cost.

Excel optimizes by integrating python, the programming language which among other purposes, can be used for data analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. This is the better option for tasks that are smaller, localized, or require user interaction within the familiar Excel interface. This will help admin who do not want to necessarily learn a new programming environment or only need to deal with small subset of data. With optimized Excel you can still test ideas before potentially scaling them.

Making Excel work for your organization

Excel is used for Data Management and Analysis, Business Process and Operations, Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity, with Strategic Planning and Decision Making. Job listings from big companies like Coca Cola, Cartier, Deloitte, and Chanel still include excel professionals indicating they still rely on this tool for their everyday operations. What makes excel obsolete for organizations usually is not the advertised demerits, but failure to pivot it for modern use. AI productivity tools for example, have been used as add-ins for Excel to save time and improve accuracy and reliability of data. Observably this has yielded very fine results for reputable companies. You can make Excel work for your organization by hiring the right professional, not one who spend hours on repetitive tasks, from data cleaning to report creation simply because they haven’t adopted AI.

The future of Excel

Less intimidating and familiar, Excel is not being replaced but upgraded, and the simple merits inherent within will continue to make it relevant. We can see the program becoming increasingly cloud-based, which is a good development; also, AI is being used for automation even as programming language like python is being is integrated. Given Microsoft’s ongoing investment in upgrading Excel it will continue to evolve, and you need a professional who understands the trend, with a combination of technical skill and practical experience.

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