Want to test your Digital Excellence? Count your spreadsheets!

Semantically, excel and excellence mean very similar things. However in the Digital context I argue they are the antithesis of each other. 

Now I love a good spreadsheet as much as anyone, as those close to me will attest. However, as a tool they were never intended to run mission critical applications within enterprise. Yet this is their very role in many organisations, and I’m not talking about one or two spreadsheets. Most large enterprises have dozens of them, all stored on local drives, with no data governance, and all able to be emailed around without any meaningful control or security. The question is why?

Yes spreadsheets are easy to create and extend with funky VBA macros and pivot tables. However, if the functionality is so important that it requires this level of development, why is it sitting in Excel and not a robust, centrally secured, managed, and accessible system that has been specifically designed to serve that functionality? Worse still, no organisation can hope to pursue a “single view” enterprise wide data estate strategy when so much data is sitting in and replicated across spreadsheets.

This all speaks to a lack of Digitally Excellence within the organisation, where these practices are allowed, or even encouraged, to proliferate instead of prioritising these migrations as part of a balanced and continuous innovation program.

I would love to know your thoughts, and your spreadsheet count if you're game.

Regards Graeme

P.S. If you would like to explore Digital Excellence for your organisation, message me to discuss our Digital Excellence Assessment services.