For many years, Excel spreadsheets have been a staple in both professional and personal circles for organising, calculating and presenting data. They’ve been a universally functional tool for a variety of applications, such as keeping tabs on company financials and managing inventory.
If you’re a die-hard spreadsheet fan, you’re probably shaking your head at the notion of abandoning them. However, there are some major reasons why you should reduce your reliance on spreadsheets overall:
You have needs that it just can’t fulfil
Ok, you can do some basic stuff with spreadsheets, like record money in and out, do sums and maybe generate some graphs and reports if you’ve got the time and the know-how. But is this really a good use of your time and resource?
They’re not worth your time
Your time is precious and it’s best spent on other areas of the business. Having to laboriously enter data by hand into a spreadsheet is a massive time drain, plus most processes can’t be automated.
It’s not just them, it’s you
Since you have to do all the hard work inputting data into spreadsheets and you’re human, it’s possible that errors can creep in.
Still not convinced?
Human error in spreadsheets has been responsible for some deal-breaker level mistakes. In 2012, JPMorgan Chase incurred a whopping £6 billion trading loss due to a blunder related to using the wrong formula. Organisers for the 2012 London games also famously oversold a swimming event by 10,000 tickets, all due to a single keystroke error which made it appear as if 20,000 tickets were available when the venue could only accommodate half that number. And most recently the UK Government’s Track and Trace system losing 16000 records!
Mistakes in spreadsheets are easy to make but hard to catch – don’t take the risk when it comes to your business.
They are full of insecurities
Because spreadsheets give access to more or less everybody on a team, instead of only to specific users, sensitive information may end up in the hands of people that are not entitled to see it. This is a major disadvantage, especially in a time where companies generate ever-growing amounts of data every day.
Also, If you’re saving spreadsheets locally on a PC or laptop and your machine stops working, you might be waving bye to the data in them for good.
Version control is also a constant risk with spreadsheets how many times have you been pinging a spreadsheet back and forth and then accidentally used the wrong version?
So what’s the alternative?
The good news is that there are now great and inexpensive tools out there that allow companies to manage data in more effective ways.
Get in touch for a free discovery session and we will create the perfect solution for your organisation
Make this the year you kick Excel business management to the kerb.
