Introduction
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe in this era of social media, we have all come across content that encourages us to ‘Awaken the beast within’. Up until a week ago, I thought that it is only us humans that contained a beast that needed awakening. Shock on me when I discovered that machines too, specifically computers/laptops, harbor a beast of their own: Microsoft Excel.
For those already familiar with Excel, you already know what I am talking about. If you happen to fall under this category, a newbie alert is hereby issued: you may relax, take a back seat, and sip your juice. For the rest of the newbies like myself, buckle up your Excel belt and get ready to explore.
Excel and its use cases.
Picture yourself as a local food chain supplier with all kind of assorted food items stored in a certain warehouse. The catch? Your stock is scattered everywhere. The moment you step inside the warehouse, an overwhelming sense of confusion weighs down on you. To get on top of things and excel (pun very much intended), you would definitely have to hire some people to come and do the arrangement and sorting of the food items in a manner that restores order.
Excel is the equivalent of the people you hire to bring order into our imaginary warehouse. It is basically a tool that helps you interact with numerical data in a more meaningful and impactful way. Excel helps you in data management, offering a wide range of functionalities at your disposal, ranging from collecting, organizing and analyzing of data, to calculation and effective visualization. Is data your problem? Excel is your solution.
Are you a small business owner wanting to keep track of your stock, sales and calculate profits? Call Excel. Are you a large financial institution looking towards managing your income statement and gain insights on your revenue growth? Call Excel. Are you a medical institution and want to make sense of your patient records? Call Excel. Are you in the hospitality industry and need to learn your client trends so that you can offer better services? Call Excel. Is your home being robbed? You’d better call 911 as Excel won’t be coming to your rescue.
Excel Features and Formulas.
The past one week has been one full of new discoveries in Excel. Let me paint you a picture.
Assume that I am the class teacher of Form 4 West at Excellent High School. Students have just completed their exams and the results are out. Before working on the data, I would first ensure that it clean by ensuring correct formats are followed. For example, in the name column, I would use the PROPER function to ensure the student names are in the correct format. I would then check for duplicates in the data and remove them if they exist.
Once done with the cleaning l, would then dive deep into analysis, starting off by average performance of the class. This would be achieved by the AVERAGE function in the column ‘Overall grade” by typing =AVERAGE (range). To identify the top-performing student, the MAX function does the job: =MAX (range). Conversely the MIN function to know the worst performing student. By now I believe you have are starting to get the hang of it.
Beyond these basics, Excel also offers powerful tools like IF statements for flagging conditions (for example, automatically marking students who scored below 50 as “At Risk”). Each formula unlocks a new layer of what the data is trying to tell you.
Conclusion
My first week of learning Excel has left me excited and eager, like a kid in a candy store. It is often said that numbers never lie and that they do tell a story. Left to their own devices, numbers remain just that: numbers, and so does data. Excel is what transforms raw data into stories, and for every story told, there is impact made.
Let’s go and Excel!
