Is Excel to be made redundant in 2017?!
Happy New Year to you and welcome to my first newsletter of the new year.
Please, let me start with a reflection on the number 2017, which is a prime number. I’m always fascinated by prime numbers and throughout my whole life they’ve played a big part. Why? It is about beauty and aesthetics and the fact that you can’t break down a prime number into any parts. Therefore 2017 will be a very interesting year. (The last year being a prime number was 2011 – the next after this will be only in 10 years’ time: 2027).
So let’s talk about Excel in 2017…
Recently I spoke with a couple of managers in my client’s office and the discussion went on about Is there a future for Excel? In other words will Excel be made redundant in 2017? That much is obvious – of course it won’t be. But if we look a bit further the valid question is: Are we still using Excel in 2020?
Are we still using Excel in 2020?
The answer is: absolutely! Without a doubt! There is no other piece of software in the world, which can do what Excel can. There is no other product as versatile as Excel on the market. You can build your workflow, your quote templates, your financial models, your CRM, your sales analytics, your monthly reporting, your bonus system and your dashboards all with the same software tool – Excel. And the above list could go on for another few pages.
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely better software-programs around for a CRM system. There are better solutions when dealing with really big data. And there are better tools when you are just looking at dashboards. But now we are talking about three different software programs instead of one.
The versatility that you have with Excel, is second to none, there is no other software program in the world, which can be used so universal as Excel.
The fact that Excel is not great on an Ipad and it is not real fun on an Iphone either will hopefully change in the next couple of years. Yes there are web-based applications like Google Docs or Tableau, which are both great in their own right. Still these other tools are by far not as versatile as Excel.
You can bank on Excel!
Don’t forget Excel is cheap as it is part of the Microsoft Office package it is literally available for free on every Windows PC within your organization.
From quick calculations to huge and complex programs – running macros – you can do and build nearly everything using Excel. Are you running sophisticated programs in the background? Or are you building your next financial model for budgeting and forecasting? You are in both cases relying on this phenomenal piece of software called Excel. Sure enough, it will be around for a long time.
So the question is not will Excel be still around in 2017 or in 2020. The interesting question is: What new and exciting functionality will be added in the next updated version? This will be called either Excel 2019 or Excel 2020.
And we might see then an Excel version that works as well on an Ipad as it does on PC and Mac already.
Here’s to your success in 2017 – remember it is a prime number and will be a very exciting year…