Spreadsheet
programs like Microsoft’s Excel are excellent tools for comparing options and
analyzing data. Many small businesses use them instead of more expensive
applications for financial, inventory or customer management.
But beware: Using a
spreadsheet in place of a more specialized program can hold your data hostage.
The appeal of a spreadsheet’s wide-open capabilities is also its downfall.
Let’s take a
hypothetical scenario to demonstrate the slippery slope.
At first we start
with simple list data like customer name, email, phone, address, products
purchased and total sales. Add in a summation formula for total customers and
revenue.
We need some
standardization. Turn the products-purchased field from free-form entry into a
drop-down list. The sales team likes it but wants the customers classified by
region and their total revenue broken out by each product category purchased.
Add a region field, populate the regional data and do a “sum if” statement to
calculate revenue by category.
Is this starting to
sound familiar? Read this article in it's entirety at Sacramento Business Journal >>>
