CPG Chatter

Being in the software business, I hear about the challenges of Excel all the time.  People recognize its limitations, and in many cases believe its overuse is actually holding the company back.  There are a number of business problems that Excel is good at and others that it’s bad at.  But the one thing I hear universally is that it’s “free”.  After all, it’s hard to beat free right?  So a month or so back I decided to do some more digging and determine what the real costs are associated with the use of spreadsheets.  The result was a white paper entitled “Spreadsheet Addiction – The True Cost to the CPG Industry”.

Break the Shackles of Spreadsheets

While I had a sense this was a hot button in the industry, I was still surprised when the downloads exceeded that of anything else I had written in the past year.  As a result of the response, I plan to also write a follow-up companion paper on the business challenges in addition to the cost.  So if awareness of the limitations of spreadsheets is so acute today, why is it that folks have such a hard time breaking from their Excel shackles?

This morning I was forwarded a link to an interesting blog that might just have that answer.  The blog is called Thomas on Spreadsheets, and it is entirely dedicated to exposing the strengths and limitations of spreadsheets as business tools.  One particular post from last month simply entitled “Conservatives” really caught my eye.  It describes how the biggest reason folks cling to spreadsheets is that the alternative requires change.  It might require a new piece of technology, extra work, or worse – the involvement of the IT organization.  Simply summarized, people fear change therefore they reject it.

The challenge, I think, is not just identifying that there is likely a better way.  And as my white paper helps to point out, it’s likely not a cost issue either.  What’s missing is a champion, willing to stick his or her neck out to go find, and then actually implement a better solution.  I fear many corporate employees (even managers and executives) fear failure far more than they crave the hero role.  Everything else is just an excuse or red herring to avoid change.

For now, the best we can do is educate and inform people on the true costs and risks, and remove as many barriers to “herodom” as we can.  I just spoke to a new client last week about the process she had to go through to convince her organization that a true business application removed dozens of barriers and created tremendous new opportunity.  I applaud her for taking the hero role, but I also know it involved a lot of hard work, collaboration, and persistence.  But in the end, the change will be for the better and just maybe this champion will get the credit she surely deserves.

Podcast business challenges of excel