It’s not just at month-end. The same thing happens at other times of the month, whenever any other reports need to be produced. So-called “analysts” are spending too much of their time as “Excel jockeys” rather than using their business expertise to use the information they produce to drive business improvements. They are also more likely to move on quickly if they can, inevitably causing disruption that is best avoided.
Last week we asked whether databases were the ultimate Excel add-in. Whilst Excel’s pivot table capability can be very powerful, recently enhanced with PowerPivots in Excel 2010, Excel struggles with larger data volumes.
It’s times like this that a database comes into its own. It can be MS Access or MS SQL, which has multi-dimensional functionality in “Analysis Services”, or a multi-dimensional OLAP system. These can form the basis for far quicker and better analysis. In many cases (but not all) Excel can still be used as a front-end to take results and format them for presentation.
They key is that analysts need to be able to control their own system, and not have to wait for someone else to make any changes. This is why Excel is so popular. But most analysts are perfectly capable of building and maintaining the databases needed for reporting. Depending on the system used, this can also be used to improve budgeting and forecasting.
So why do so many businesses still only use Excel?
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Along with "businesses" I also would include in your question the many divisions, departments, and analysts that use only Excel although their corporation might own a BI system.
ReplyDeleteThere are many answers to this question, but here are ten off the top of my head:
1. As you point out, analysts want to control their own system; they can't wait for IT. True, Excel-friendly OLAPs like PowerOLAP and TM1 are designed for user maintenance, but IT often prohibits such interaction.
2. Few BI systems are Excel-friendly. That is, they write data to spreadsheets rather than provide spreadsheet functions that can return the data. So Excel users still must interact with numbers in cells...just like opening a text file. So why not ignore the BI and just import a text file?
3. Manangers need to see data from sources that IT doesn't control, and probably never will. That data often must be compared and contrasted with IT-sourced data. So because IT can't provide a complete solution, there's less value in a partial solution from them.
4. Excel provides vastly more sophisticated analytical capabilities than BI systems do.
5. Users don't have the time or interest to learn MDX, which is needed to use Excel's CUBE functions effectively with Analysis Services data.
6. Strangely, Microsoft hasn't provided tools that allow Excel worksheet functions to return data from an Access database.
7. Cost is always an issue.
8. Many managers are smart enough to realize that the gauges, 3D images, and other visual candy that BI systems provide aren't worth the money. In fact, I've talked with managers who would pay money to avoid such toys.
9. There are Excel-only solutions to many symptoms of Spreadsheet Hell. And many Excel users have discovered those solutions.
10. With the growing use of Excel dashboards (which I invented about 1990) many Excel reports are superior to the output from BI systems. That is, Excel can provide more business insight per minute of reading time than BI systems can, and for a tiny fraction of the cost.
All the best,
Charley Kyd
www.ExcelUser.com