Ditch the spreadsheets……
……they are a useful business tool, but when they are used as a means of organising, storing, and manipulating data in a business they can be dangerous.
A spreadsheet is usually ‘owned’ by one person. That person knows how the formulae work and only they can amend them. There is normally no scrutiny, oversight, validation, or version control. It is reported that almost 90% of spreadsheets have errors – the only surprising thing about that is that over 10% don’t!
Keying data into a spreadsheet is a repetitive, boring job. Humans are bad at doing this kind of work and mistakes are inevitable. The cost of those mistakes can be enormous. Think about what happened at the 2020 London Olympics when the simple human error of typing 20,000 instead of 10,000 into a spreadsheet caused an overselling of 3,000 tickets for a synchronised swimming event. Imagine how much time and effort had to go in to sorting that out – practically, financially, and reputationally.
Even without errors that could bring your company to its knees, using spreadsheets in the wrong way creates a problem if you have ambitions to grow your business. The ‘owner’ of your spreadsheets is often a key person in your business whose time and energy could be used in helping you to drive your business forward, if they weren’t spending time entering and managing data on spreadsheets!
So, what’s the answer? Useful, inexpensive technology!
Technology can free you from all of that because:
- Everyone can have access to the same information.
- Collaboration is possible.
- Human error can be eliminated.
- Good MI allows you to make informed decisions.
- You, and your staff, can save so much time!
- The time that you free up can be used to grow your company.
So, ditch the spreadsheets and embrace clever technology in your business!
