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Many companies are sending their staff to Microsoft Excel classes like crazy these days. It’s no joke. Our Excel classes are all full – packed with waiting lists. Classes such as Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook while still offered; have seen a major decline. In fact, we are seeing 7 out of 10 training enrollments made by companies are for one of the Microsoft Excel classes we offer. We offer seven levels of Excel by the way.
These are current employees, from all levels of the ladder, being enrolled in classes to learn Excel by their employer. New hires, seasoned pros, even Executives. It doesn’t matter, everyone seems to be getting into the data game at some level, and those who know enough to be slightly dangerous are taking advanced classes to become experts.
It’s no surprise really. They have said for a while, “Data is King.” Well, it certainly is today… and its reign over the land seems to have no end in sight. Every component of a business is being run and decided on with the use of data. Data usually comes in a little rough and incohesive, which means it needs to be scrubbed to make proper use of it.
Then an organization’s data needs to be consolidated and presented so others can analyze it and make the important decisions affecting sales, inventory, finances, people management, operations, and more. We’re basically at the point living in a data-driven world where Excel is the universal language that is spoken. If everyone is speaking that language, and you are not, well, you may get left behind.
The good news is, learning Excel is not difficult. Yes, it can get very advanced with PivotTables and macros, but no feature of Excel was written to be impossible to learn. Everyone can pick up the basic and intermediate skills easily, and most can learn the more advanced skills and features. With the correct training, the job possibilities are limitless.
Office Management
Successfully managing an office begins with overseeing the work of all employees and procedures while ensuring productivity. The process then moves on to monitoring supply levels on everything from paper products and appliances to furniture and electronics. Excel is an excellent efficient tool for tracking supply levels, order information, and any order requests. Excel also helps to organize HR and employee information. Imagine having the ability to quickly sort and or filter all your data on the fly. Excel PivotTables and Power Pivot give you exactly that.
Project Management
As a project manager you are accountable for the success of failure of your project. This involves tracking time, quality, and cost. Excel is a valuable tool in project management for conveying budgetary updates and discrepancies. Various Excel charts will demonstrate quality and defect goals against actuals. Excel dashboards are perfect for reporting to your resources, vendors, and management in a format that all can easily understand. Excel Scenarios enable you to quickly switch from actuals and back to original time estimates.
Analyst (at any level)
As an analyst you will need to keep a correct and current account of large amounts of data for your company. Practically all companies, both public and private, require a thorough working knowledge of Excel to be considered for employment or advancement as an analyst. Excel streamlines the process by offering a wide variety of graphical representations including Burndown and Trendline Charts, along with Correlation and Histograms. Excel PivotTables are a must for organizing and manipulating large data sets.
Finance Management
There isn’t a better tool for finance management than Excel. Excel allows you to create comprehensive spreadsheets with unlimited potential in direction. Utilizing absolute referencing allows for projections on any size data list. Instantly setting your data lists to accounting format meets general accounting standards. Standard deviation quickly demonstrates the coefficient and can be converted instantly into a trendline chart for easy visualization.
Retail Management
Excel is an invaluable tool in the retail world, everything from inventory lists to employee information is stored in Excel spreadsheets. Excel Vlookup and Hlookup are functions that allow inventory searches into the hundreds of thousands by simply typing a part name or number. Payroll is easily managed in an Excel spreadsheet along with asset tracking. Sales projections and sales averages are also calculated in Excel. Literally everything including clocking in and out can be managed easily with Excel.
Sales
Tracking sales is simplified by keeping your information in Excel spreadsheets. The built-in functions allow you to sum, average, count, subtract, and track percentages all in one place. Excel offers Sparklines so that you can chart single columns or rows of data in trends, column charts, or win loss variance. When you need to track numerous lists each one can be either on their own sheet in a workbook, or they can be in separate Excel workbooks while allowing running totals for all the lists on a separate single spreadsheet.
Marketing
Competitive analysis, feature prioritization, and networking are key factors in marketing. Excel charts give the best visualization tool to reach your specific market while demonstrating how to solve problems, redefine the medium, and show your intended audience they are a priority. Excel Tables do the same for numbers orientated audiences while giving aesthetic appeal. Excel spreadsheets allow you to organize and keep track of which audience needs what approach and when.
Information Technology (IT)
Working in IT involves maintaining and improving technical systems for your company, ensuring employees have the technology needed to do their work, along with protecting the company’s information. Excel Charts allow you to visually record the efficiency of systems. Protected spreadsheets allow you to safely store security certificates. Protected ranges allow users to submit repair tickets while not having the ability to edit any locked data on the ticket. Formatted Excel tables will allow for anticipation of cost when replacing or updating software and hardware components.
Data Science
Data Science requires mastery of the Life Cycle. This includes data acquisition and extraction, Data Mining and Modeling, Data Scrubbing and Data Warehousing, Data Visualization and Business Intelligence, Predicative Analysis and Qualitative Analysis. Excel can store this data in spreadsheets, workbooks, and dashboards. Excel PowerPivot does not have the row and column limitations that a spreadsheet has, making huge data lists easy to condense, summarize, and flip. Excel’s built-in statistical functions simplify the analysis process and provide graphical representations for delivery to a broad audience. Excel VBA enables code generation to automate repetitive processes.
Operations Management
Being such a delivery focused position, Excel is the perfect tool to track the organizing, supervising, and planning the manufacturing or provision of services. Linking Excel spreadsheets easily tracks procurement, costs, and timelines. Organization is crucial as is driving productivity. Storing information in a workbook allows tracking across multiple worksheets, utilizing the built in Excel aggregate and financial functions keep all figures on point for easy reporting and updating.
Excel is a staple in the workplace no matter what type of work you do. While our roles and responsibilities vary greatly, the software we use to organize the day-to-day operations is the same. Getting proficient or becoming an expert with Excel greatly enhances desirability as a candidate for either a new job, or a promotion from a current job. Knowledge is power. You can get the proper Excel knowledge to enable you take your career as far as you want it to go.
