Putting “Excel Hell” into Google suggests it is in Pleasanton California. Maybe that’s the epicentre, as I’ve seen Excel Hell in plenty of other places around the UK.
Don’t get me wrong. Excel is a tremendous tool. Perhaps too powerful for its own good (and ours). It’s easy to get started, like Twitter and Facebook, and then people get hooked.
Excel’s presentation capability means it is used heavily for reporting. But the use of a database or BI tool alongside Excel would often be more effective.
I’ve also seen many organisations where spreadsheets are used to log and control transaction processing, such as sales and purchases. Here’s a couple of examples where “Excel hell” has been escaped by implementing database solutions:
(1)In one multi-million pound business, all the sales and purchases were logged in Excel, with one user for each function. Whilst spreadsheets can be shared, Excel really isn’t suitable for multi-user situations. The lack of easy scalability meant the business was finding their ability to grow severely impaired. A multi-user database solution was implemented that linked sales and purchases “back to back”. Not only did this system support 10-fold growth in business, but supplier rebates were claimed of some £600,000 annually. This doubled profits and provided a welcome boost to cashflow to fund expansion
(2)In a second case, multiple Excel spreadsheets had been configured to allow a team of people to use them. However the situation had reached the point where valued members of that team were threatening to resign unless something was done about the systems. The resulting database systems avoided that exodus, and when the business was taken over, the systems were used in preference to the acquiring company’s systems. So it was my client’s team and jobs (from FD to clerks) that were retained when the expanded group was rationalised.
So moving successfully from Excel to a database solution can not only produce a tangible financial return, but also clear personal benefits.
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