Overview: The Universal Spreadsheet examines how organizations can increase their productivity by decreasing their dependency on using spreadsheets and develop strategies to move critical business information into databases.
As working professionals we are constantly challenged to achieve a healthy
work-life balance. Most of us have a friend or colleague who regularly attends
their son or daughter's soccer game, but whose cell phone is constantly
ringing, or they are clicking away on their Blackberry. In the age where
countless technologies are allowing us to become more efficient, newly found
efficiencies are rapidly transforming the 40-hour work week into the "infinity"
work week. Twelve-hour workdays are becoming increasingly common, and checking
email on the weekends or before you get to work is now the norm.
At our organization we've also noticed this shift in the workplace. In addition
to common technologies such as cell phones and email, we've encountered a
specific software technology that causes the same diminishing returns. It is
the universal spreadsheet. Overall, in an effort to streamline operations
within an organization, the universal spreadsheet causes companies to become
more labor intensive, inefficient and less scalable. What is the universal
spreadsheet? Here are some examples.
Spreadsheets for Inventory
It's the spreadsheet that manages your in-house inventory. It's updated by the
four department heads on a monthly basis before it's sent off to the manager
for approval. Each department head forwards the document to each other via
email before it is submitted to the manager.
Spreadsheets for Accounting
It's the critical group of 30 spreadsheets that contain account receivable
balances for all your top customers. Since you joined the company three years
ago the business has always used this method to manage its accounting
processes. The last company you worked at used specialized accounting software,
but you've been assured that packaged software "doesn't meet the specialized
needs" in your current job.
Spreadsheets for Contacts
For your small business, it's the list of names and phone numbers of your top
prospects or customers. It's easy to work with because you can have sales or
marketing update the spreadsheet with new names or fields anytime. You feel
good about the money you've saved by not buying ACT! or Goldmine.
Our goal at Arbutus Software is to shape technology to your business.
Once established, our clients save
time, achieve professional results and establish a solid information technology
foundation for business growth. Overall we define success in implementing software
solutions that make business activities easier. This could be as simple as reducing the number of
phone calls your customer support department receives, not having to work the
weekend preparing the big presentation, or providing the means to generate that
important report in a single "click" instead of five hours of clicking.
What causes the universal spreadsheet syndrome to occur?
The Balancing Act
Without question, the biggest hurdle to overcome for small business
is allocating time. With limited time comes limited options, which translates to
having to design "creative" solutions that more established firms take for
granted. Also, most small businesses lack the technical resources to research,
deploy and maintain mature software solutions. The universal spreadsheet seems
to be a fit because it has the ability to store information (such as lists) in
a tabular format, and it is relatively easy to access and edit.
For medium-size businesses, new business growth may dictate the need to
introduce more structure to managing information. This could include the
creation of financial reports for management, tracking customer relationships,
or supporting customers during your first product release.
In one example, someone in the accounting department (a.k.a. the power-user)
likes to track things using spreadsheets and they design a spreadsheet that
tallies, calculates and automatically sorts information referenced in three
other spreadsheets. The "solution" is presented at the next staff meeting and
management loves it. Even though the staff doesn't understand how it works,
it's obvious that it produces good results. It is adopted as the new company
reporting "standard". This universal spreadsheet seems to be a fit because the
company didn't have to go through the IT department (or outsource) to get the
solution they needed.
The Solution or the Problem?
The universal spreadsheet, although savvy, has a number of side effects. The
most obvious is that the solution is often
"home-grown", labor intensive and is not designed for long-term use. It's
great to have company employees organizing the business rules for complex
reporting standards, but seldom is the power-user a professional programmer.
This becomes a problem when the company experiences significant growth, and
changes are required to an existing spreadsheet to support the company's
needs. Now the benefits of using spreadsheet technology are long gone, the
power-user has left the company, and no one can figure out how to generate
reports. To make matters worse, new team members attempt to "decode" work that
was previously implemented, but without adequate documentation most of the
company's technology investment is lost.
Another scenario is that a business may continue to create individual
spreadsheets as their company grows, but are challenged when they get to a
point where they need to review large quantities of information in order to
make an important decision. With their critical business information stored in
multiple locations (individual spreadsheet files) most of their software
productivity gains are lost by searching through countless spreadsheet files
and other sources of information. Tasks that used to be straightforward now
take hours to complete.
How can companies take advantage of spreadsheet technology without experiencing
diminishing returns?
Migrate critical business data away from information silos
Information that is critical to your business should always be stored in a
central location that is easy to access. This strategy allows co-workers, management,
partners and customers to access a single version of your business data, thus having
the entire organization on the same page. It makes new information
easy to maintain as your organizations grows.
Storing spreadsheets on the company network meets part of this responsibility,
but moving mission critical business information away from spreadsheets and
into true a database is what any size company should be looking to achieve.
Upgrading from spreadsheets doesn't always mean an investment of 10K or
more. Depending on your level of need and your industry, there are likely
off-the-shelf software solutions available to make things easier for your
business. Products like Quickbooks
which is the silver bullet of the financial sector, as Intuit has helped millions of businesses
migrate their information away from unstructured spreadsheets and into
structured data formats.
Plan for growth
For more specialized needs, database solutions such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and
IBM DB2, are designed to manage large quantities of
data (millions of records) so that different types of software can access the
same information.
For example, companies that have unique business requirements for tracking
customer orders can move this data to a centralized SQL Server database. Now
they can have specialized software built, or continue to use of-the-shelf
software to access this information. This strategy opens many options for an
organization, as agile companies plan for multiple applications to use the
same data.
These companies still
continue to use spreadsheets, but also use other enabling technologies such as
the Internet, web services and robust reporting platforms to provide information to
customers, to communicate with their external workforce, and to collaborate
with partners.
For businesses looking to get started with database technology, leading providers also
provide free, fully licensed versions of their beginner database platforms so that
organizations can test and experiment with the technology. Among others, this
includes solutions from Oracle and Microsoft.
Conclusion
Moving away from the universal spreadsheet is a challenging, but greatly rewarding
process. With careful planning and some technical assistance, you can transform your
biggest information problems into a robust, scalable and cost-effective solution.