MS Excel is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft in 1985 that is commonly used to analyze, store, and present data. It allows users to perform calculations, apply formulas, and create graphs and charts to summarize trends in large datasets. Businesses widely use Excel for tasks like financial analysis, accounting, marketing, HR planning, and more. It provides tools for tasks like data analysis, security, online access, and presentation of data through features like pivot tables, charts, and formulas. Excel has become vital for office workers and its understanding can help with career growth and opportunities.
MS Excel is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft in 1985 that is commonly used to analyze, store, and present data. It allows users to perform calculations, apply formulas, and create graphs and charts to summarize trends in large datasets. Businesses widely use Excel for tasks like financial analysis, accounting, marketing, HR planning, and more. It provides tools for tasks like data analysis, security, online access, and presentation of data through features like pivot tables, charts, and formulas. Excel has become vital for office workers and its understanding can help with career growth and opportunities.
MS Excel is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft in 1985 that is commonly used to analyze, store, and present data. It allows users to perform calculations, apply formulas, and create graphs and charts to summarize trends in large datasets. Businesses widely use Excel for tasks like financial analysis, accounting, marketing, HR planning, and more. It provides tools for tasks like data analysis, security, online access, and presentation of data through features like pivot tables, charts, and formulas. Excel has become vital for office workers and its understanding can help with career growth and opportunities.
MS Excel is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft in 1985 that is commonly used to analyze, store, and present data. It allows users to perform calculations, apply formulas, and create graphs and charts to summarize trends in large datasets. Businesses widely use Excel for tasks like financial analysis, accounting, marketing, HR planning, and more. It provides tools for tasks like data analysis, security, online access, and presentation of data through features like pivot tables, charts, and formulas. Excel has become vital for office workers and its understanding can help with career growth and opportunities.
What is MS Excel? MS Excel is a spreadsheet (an electronic document in which data is arranged in the rows and columns of a grid and can be manipulated and used in calculations) program developed by Microsoft in 1985, with the sole purpose of helping businesses compile all their financial data. Fast forward to the future after 31 years, it is now the most commonly used program for creating graphs and tables. However, many still believe it is just a mere tool for small business purposes.
How does an Excel Interface look?
Applications of MS Excel
1. Analyzing and storing data
One of the best uses of MS Excel is that you can analyze larger amounts of data to discover trends. With the help of graphs and charts, you can summarize the data and store it in an organized way so that whenever you want to see that data then you can easily see it. It becomes easier for you to store data and it will definitely save a lot of time for you.
Once the data is stored in a systematic way, it can be used easily for multiple purposes. MS Excel makes it easier to implement various operations on the data through various tools that it possesses.
2. Mathematical formulae of MS Excel make things easier
Next best use of MS Excel is that it makes easy for you to solve complex mathematical problems in a much simpler way without much manual effort. There are many formulae in MS Excel and by using these formulas you can implement lots of operations like finding sum, average, etc. on a large amount of data all at once. Therefore, people use MS Excel whenever they have to solve complex mathematical problems or they need to apply simple mathematical functions on tables containing larger data.
3. Security One of the use of MS Excel is that it provides security for excel files so people can keep their files safe. All the files of MS Excel can be kept password-protected directly within the excel file. People store their important data in the MS Excel so that they can keep their data in an organized way and save their time as well. Almost every person wants his files to be password protected so that no one is able to see them or ruin them so here MS Excel solves this problem very efficiently. 4. Add sophistication to data presentations Next use of MS Excel is that it helps you in adding more sophistication to your data presentations which means that you can improve the data bars, you can highlight any specific items that you want to highlight and make your data much more presentable easily.
The graph shows quarterly sales generated in two consecutive years.
Suppose you have stored data in MS Excel and you want to highlight something that is important so then you can do that through the various features of data presentations available in MS Excel. You can even make the spreadsheets more attractive on which you have stored data.
5. Online access Another use of MS Excel is that it can be accessed online from anywhere and everywhere which means that you can access it from any device and from any location whenever you want. It provides the facility of working conveniently which means that if you don’t have laptops then you can use mobile and do your work easily without any problem. Therefore, due to the large amount of flexibility that MS Excel provides, people like to work on MS Excel so that they can comfortably work without worrying about their device or location.
6. Keeps data combined at one location
Another interesting use of MS Excel is that you can keep all your data at one location. This will help you in saving your data from getting lost. It will keep all your data in one place and then you will not have to waste your time in searching for the files. So it will save your time and whenever need be, you can look up the categorized and sorted data easily.
7. Helps businessmen in developing future strategy
You can represent data in the form of charts and graphs so it can help in identifying different trends. With the help of MS Excel, trend lines can be extended beyond graph and therefore, it helps one in analyzing the trends and patterns much easier. This image depicts trend lines
In business, it is very important to analyze the popularity of goods or the selling pattern that they follow to maximize sales. MS Excel simplifies this task and helps businessmen grow and maximize profits through the same.
8. Manage expenses MS Excel helps in managing expenses. Suppose if a doctor is earning around 50,000 per month then he will make some expenses as well and if he wants to know how much he is exactly spending per month then he can do it with the help of MS Excel easily. He can write his monthly income as well as expenses in the excel tables and then he can get to know that how much he is spending and he can thus, control his expenses accordingly. Areas of Application in Business
Finance and Accounting
Financial services and financial accounting are the areas of finance that rely on and benefit from Excel spreadsheets the most. In the 1970s and early 1980s, financial analysts would spend weeks running advanced formulas either manually or in programs like IBM's Lotus 1-2- 3. Now, you can perform complex modeling in minutes with Excel.
Walk through the finance or accounting department of any major corporate office, and you will see computer screens filled with Excel spreadsheets crunching numbers, outlining financial results, and creating budgets, forecasts, and plans used to make major business decisions.
Marketing and Product Management
While marketing and product professionals look to their finance teams to do the heavy lifting for financial analysis, using spreadsheets to list customer and sales targets can help you manage your salesforce and plan future marketing strategies based on past results.
Using a pivot table (a powerful tool in MS Excel which is used to calculate, summarize, and analyze data that lets you see comparisons, patterns, and trends in your data), users can quickly and easily summarize customer and sales data by category with a quick drag-and-drop.
Human Resources Planning
While database systems like Oracle or SAP can be used to manage payroll and employee information, exporting that data into Excel allows users to discover trends, summarize expenses and hours by pay period, month, or year, and better understand how your workforce is spread out by function or pay level.
HR professionals can use Excel to take a giant spreadsheet full of employee data and understand exactly where the costs are coming from and how to best plan and control them for the future. Excel is not going anywhere
Excel is not going anywhere, and businesses will continue to use Excel as a primary tool for diverse functions and applications ranging from IT projects to company picnics.
A working knowledge of Excel is vital for most office based professionals today, and stronger Excel skills can open the door to promotion and leadership opportunities. Excel is a powerful tool but cannot function alone. It takes a savvy computer user to take advantage of everything Excel has to offer to provide the best results for their company. Where to pick the Basics?
Well to start off learning, you do not need to join a class. It is important to know how to work on and use excel. For this all you need is a computer and a net connection. Some suggested methods by which you can learn this subject from home are:
Video tutorials on Excel
1. The Beginner’s Guide to Excel- Excel Basics Tutorial
Please click on the link below to watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwbho0CgEAE 2. Excel Charts & Graphs: Learn the Basics for a Quick Start
Please click on the link below to watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAU0qqh_I-A 3. 10 Most Used Excel Formula
Please click on the link below to watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t3FDi98GBk
Online Certification on Excel
If you are keen on joining a course and get certified for the same then the following links would be useful.
1. Microsoft Office Certification [Click here for details]
2. Microsoft Excel Certification (GoSkills) [Click here for details] 3. Excel Certification (E-learnExcel) [Click here] ASSESSMENT
1. MS Excel is the most commonly used program for creating _________________
a. Diagrams b. Infographics c. Charts and tables d. hypothesis
2. _____________ is one of the most important parameter of human resource planning, created by MS Excel
a. Auditing b. Payroll c. Capital budgeting d. Employee skillset
3. Using a ____________, users can quickly and easily summarize customer and sales data by category with a quick drag-and-drop.
a. Column graph b. Pie chart c. Pivot table d. Macro
4. Excel creates _____________ models for new products based on new customer forecasts.
a. Revenue growth b. Business c. Growth d. Unique
5. Using Excel to list customer and sales target helps the _______________ department
a. Finance b. HR c. IT d. Sales & Marketing ANSWER KEYS
1. c. Charts and tables
Explanation:MS Excel is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft in 1985, with the sole purpose of helping businesses compile all their financial data, yearly credit, and yearly debit sheets. Fast forward to the future after 31 years, it is now the most commonly used program for creating graphs and pivot tables.
2. b. Payroll
Explanation: Database systems like Oracle (ORCL)can be used to manage payroll and employee information. Exporting that data into Excel allows users to discover trends, summarize expenses and hours by pay period, month, or year, and better understand how your workforce is spread out by function or pay level.
3. c. Pivot table
Explanation: Although filters or functions can be used in an existing set of data, using a pivot table (a powerful tool in MS Excel which is used to calculate, summarize, and analyze data that lets you see comparisons, patterns, and trends in your data), users can quickly and easily summarize customer and sales data by category with a quick drag-and-drop.
4. a. Revenue growth
Explanation: Excel creates revenue growth models for new products based on new customer forecasts.
5. d. Sales & Marketing
Explanation: Marketing and product professionals look to their finance teams to do the heavy lifting for financial analysis. Using spreadsheets to list customer and sales targets can help the team manage sales force and plan future marketing strategies based on past results.
