Are you unable to take the decisions that will improve your tools? Is it your boss’ responsability because it’s not in your job description?

I doubt.

Read on and you will come to the same conclusions as me: a small investment in applications makes the work so much more enjoyable and efficient. It’ll get you much more time to be with family and organize your next trip to Honolulu.

If you’re like most office workers, your main tool is a fabulous Excel workbook. Whether you know complicated formulas or not will not change the need for better tools that will decrease your workload.

Unless you have a lot of free time at the office to improve yourself thoroughly in Excel, chances are that your workbooks can be optimized and automated; This will save enormous amount of time.

Would you like to come in on a Monday morning and click on a button to retrieve all sales of the weekend and automatically get a report of the net profit by region and by supplier rather than taking your whole morning to compile the data and input it throughout your report?

I think your boss would be impressed if you come with your fresh report of the day at 9:05 am. Not only the information is available from 4 to 6 hours earlier, but you become available to do other tasks. You become more productive.

Another example on how to be more effective at work?

Ok, let’s see how you can spend less time in the office and remain the same effective employee before using your new methodology.

A colleague filed a database of 80,000 lines on the network and he asks you to structure client groups based on several criteria, correct address errors to compile clients by region and he finally asks you also to create graphics with key performance indicators for different measures. He wants this work to be done weekly so he could send a PDF report to managers accross the business.

Ouch…

Completing the initial work of this request will take all week, you know it. Agents who have entered the data found ten different ways to write Montreal (montréal, monreal, montrael, Montéral, etc.), everything is jumbled and you will need 6 hours just to structure the data so that you can make a clean database. Ok, let’s say that it’s done.

And then? You must build a dynamic dashboard, powerful and in a few hours because you could lose all your eveningsat home doing this project if you spend too much time on it because your other mandates continue to come in.

You rarely make dashboards with statistics and key performance indicators (KPI). You will get to do it, for sure. But it will not be as pretty as you‘d hoped, it will not have all the statistics that would have included a pro and above all, it would have take you a long time to build the dashboard while an expert would have done it in a few hours .

That‘s when you realize that the specialization of tasks has ensured that business productivity increased drastically. Your boss asks you a lot and this is not your field of expertise.

Why Excel is underutilized?

Excel is both a very simple tool and very complex. Everybody can play and build usable workbooks. But Excel experts reveal the power of the Microsoft software. Often, users do not even imagine what can be done with this program. One can go through many different ways to build a tool, but the length of the route is far from the same…

Back on topic. You will get to meet the demand of your colleague, but it will take 35 hours to do everything. All this time that you wanted to take care of your other jobs and causing you delays.

There is a solution to your challenge coming with several benefits: you will save time, you will remain engaged for your work, but above all, your company will decrease its costs.

What’s the solution ? Calling in Excel experts who will carry out all this work in a short time, because they do this kind of job every day. These are called Excel consultants.

Not only they can do the job in much less time, but the dashboard will also be much more comprehensive. It will probably contain more performance measures, it will be more interactive and it will surely help you make better decisions for your business. Why, would you say? Simply because we all have our areas of expertise.

Side note: the objective of consultants is in no way to take your job or increase costs for your business. Quite the contrary. They are there to help you do what you were hired for (analysis / project management / bookkeeping / etc.), instead of beign assigned tasks that are not part of your are of expertise and that are slowing down the implementation of projects because your are treating data instead of thinking about new strategies.

 

Remember your first interview. In our example, we would have described the position as sales analysis and project planning to increase the growth of the company. Design analysis tools is not part of the job. Why ? Because you are good in the file analysis, in decision making and in seeking solutions to increase market share. That’s your specialty.

 

Why bother diversifying your tasks outside of your area of expertise? You may lose time, to do less than what an Excel expert could have done and this will result in higher costs for your business.

 

We cannot do everything ourself.

 

Focus in your specialty. Your company can buy good working tools that will help you perform. Take time to analyze data rather than building them. You will have more time to find solutions to your expansion plans.

 

This is how you can settle the rapid growth of your business.

Excel is more than just a nice looking spreadsheet!

At first sight, the software is a simple tool to use, but a regular user quickly reaches the limits of what he can do with the software because he does not have time to deepen his knowledge in programming. It is always possible to input some formulas to achieve its ends, but there are optimal ways to develop the full potential of Excel. With a high level of expertise, it gets its way much faster and creates workbooks much more powerful and interesting for managers.

Excel is often underestimated. There is a misconception that it is a big spreadsheet and that’s all. You will be really surprised at what can be done with this software when you know about VBA programming and C # in VSTO. For non-regulars, it is the most popular programming languages of Microsoft Office.

Today, many managers ask employees to do more because they do not necessarily know that there are specialized people who can do the job in less time and significantly increase the efficiency of the project.

First, we’ll calculate the project performance of the example, then we’ll see how Excel consulting services will help you become more effective without costing a penny to your employer. See by yourself the impact of outsourcing certain services with this infographic.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

When hiring Excel consultants, the project cost is lower for your business and you will have more time to devote to your other projects on your side.

Bonus: you’ll have a tool that will probably be better than what you were going to build because programmers are experts in their field. Your next decisions will be based on all the information available… Conversely, programmers could not do your job. They do not have the knowledge to plan the expansion of sales and of the company. Everyone have their own field of expertise!

Why the best performing companies use the services of a consultant in Microsoft Excel?

• To reduce costs
• For employees to spend less time at work
• For employees to enjoy their work
• To dominate competitors
• …

Microsoft Excel is probably the most used business tool worldwide. There are only a few firms where you will not see an open Excel workbook on workstations of office workers.

Although all users can use it quickly, it takes much longer to exploit its full potential. The learning curve is very long before you can make very effective tools that will save you time in each of your tasks.

A growing number of Excel consulting firms are appearing on the market. This is not new, but more companies realize the importance of outsourcingthe work to firms that will carry a project forward quickly, with real added value.

Here are some of the reasons why more and more companies hire an Excel consulting firm.

To reduce costs.

Employees all have an hourly rate, whether they are salaried or hourly employees. Every minute spent doing work is a cost to the company. The goal of any company is to cut spending and increase the returns.

The best way to do that: ensure that employees are as efficient as possible. How? Giving them adequate working tools and use their knowledge and analytical skills rather than making them do the data processing.

It‘s like the cook who makes vegetable salads. He can do anything with his knife, he is able to cut its vegetables fine enough to make delicious salads. But if he bought a mandolin, he would have time to do much more and he would sell a lot more salads. Buying a high-performance tool has increased its profit and revenue.

The Excel consultant is your mandolin. It costs a few dollars, but it provides permanent efficient work tools that increase the productivity of your business. To work faster and more efficiently, you often have to invest a little. But it is worth it!

Is it confusing? Here are some quick examples:

• More effective renewal tool for actuarial consultants
• Automation of accounting entries for the Finance Department
• Project management tool for field staff
• Payroll and group insurance interactive forms for the human resources department. No more recurring payment for commercial licenses; pay less and get a custom tool for your business.
• The list can go lie down for 6 more rolls of papyrus, but you get the idea.

For employees to spend less time at work.

How many times did you create Excel reports that you had to manually enter new data each week? You lose valuable time in updating your report and you often tell yourself: “It would be so much easier if I had an employee who would fill that report for me and that interest rates from major banks would automatically be updated and inputted in the report. I would save so much time!”.

Actually, the solution is by no means a new hire. Your report CAN be created and updated automatically. A professional Excel consultant will automat your report and create functions to automatically download new interest rates. You would only have to click a button to register the new information in the report and it would automatically saved to PDF before being sent by email.

A programmer can do a lot more than you thought possible. Try to contact one just to see if he would be able to realize the project you have in mind…

Reduce data processing errors – For employees to enjoy their work

The routine usually ends up outweigh the most meticulous employee. If you have to do certain tasks day after day, there is a very real risk of a careless error in the data processing.

This kind of data processing should be done programmatically. If you repeat the same tasks for more than 4 times, there is no reason not to program them. You will save time, but you will mostly save costs to the company.

Imagine if management took an important decision for the company and it was based on an erroneous report. Imagine the money losses arising from such errors. What would happen if you said that a business line made a return of 3.4% per year while you were made a mistake in producing this soporific weekly report and the final yield is rather – 3.4%? What a mistake!

You should have automate the damn report. You would avoid a huge loss to your business in addition to better appreciate your work because you would not have to do as much data processing in this boring report.

Finally, a good manager ensures that employees always enjoy their work. If they do routine data processing , chances are they become demotivated. Why not offer the automatic production of the report so that employees spend more time analyzing growth strategies and increase their knowledge? Automation is the future in workplaces.

He will develop interactive dashboard with key performance indicators that allow you to track the progress of your business and your products or services. At a glance, you will see where to apply changes in your processes thanks to the statistics available.

Owning up-to–date performance statistics allow you to adapt to the changing marketplace and develop new business strategies before your competitors do it.

The final word

In the end, we realize we can do almost all the work by ourself. But that is not what will bring our business further.

We must know how to delegate and how to be well surrounded for growing our business.

If you get your business with better tools that will ensure that employees will spend more time finding new growth strategies than to process data, you are going to offer significant growth opportunities for your business.

Tell me in the comments what ways do you use to reduce your working hours while being as effective! Sharing is good for everyone 🙂