In any industry-shaking transformation, there are bound to be detractors. My Excel enterprise methodology—a model that uses client-server architecture with relational databases at the core—has prompted several predictable pushbacks. Many of these objections stem from outdated thinking, flawed assumptions, or simple misunderstandings about what Excel is truly capable of when deployed correctly.
This article lays out those pushbacks and answers them one by one. If you’re evaluating modern Excel in an enterprise context, or even championing it yourself, this is the ammunition you need to counter the noise.
1. “That’s Not an Excel Solution—It’s a Database”
This tired argument suggests that because a relational database is used as a centralized data store, the solution is no longer Excel. That’s nonsense.
Leveraging databases from within Excel is not only legitimate, it’s foundational. Microsoft integrated data access technology into Office over 30 years ago for exactly this purpose. The idea of a “librarian” database—centralized, always-up, and structured—is the backbone of client-server architecture. Excel is the front-end interface to this librarian, not a rogue data hoarder.
So no, it’s not a “database solution” masquerading as Excel. It’s a collaborative architecture that combines Excel’s unmatched interface with enterprise-grade data management.
2. “But That’s More Than Three Clicks!”
This quibble comes from a lighthearted claim I’ve made in presentations—that the transformation takes “just three clicks.” Pedantry aside, the point stands. Whether it’s three clicks or five, the mechanism is simple, elegant, and replicable.
The real takeaway is the clarity and power of the model—not the click count.
3. “Citizen Developers Can’t Do This”
Mark Proctor made a fair point: this level of architecture is beyond the average citizen developer. But that doesn’t discredit the methodology—it just defines the audience.
This model isn’t for everyone. It’s for those who want to move beyond novice techniques and deliver real business value. And yes, that does exclude people who can’t or won’t learn to connect a spreadsheet to a database. That’s not a flaw. That’s focus.
4. “Anything Older Than Five Years Is Obsolete”
This sentiment, echoed by influencers like Rick de Groot, is absurd. It implies that Excel features older than Power Query or Dynamic Arrays are now useless. That logic would have us abandon steering wheels because they’re over a century old.
VBA, for instance, hasn’t changed much since 2010—and it doesn’t need to. Why? Because the power lies in Excel’s object model, which evolves continuously. VBA is merely the interface. It’s the switch that controls the machinery. We don’t redesign the light switch every time we change the bulb.
5. “What Happens When He Leaves?”
Ah, the old “hero dependency” argument. The answer is simple: institutionalize the knowledge. Treat the solution as a company asset, just like a brand, a trademark, or a patented process.
And crucially, this is not complex. The elegance of the design is precisely in its simplicity. One connection string. One line of ADO code. This is easier than half the formulas being thrown around in Excel training videos today.
6. “This Is Subversive! You’re Circumventing Security!”
A legendary tale from Edexcel illustrates this. I showed how to use Excel’s built-in “Get External Data” to access financials from Oracle. The project head, Ian Hinton, called it subversive.
Yet the same organization was being paid by Microsoft to promote Office user certification, which included this very skill at the “expert” level. The irony writes itself.
This mindset—that only IT can handle data—is both false and damaging. Excel is designed to empower business users to manage their own data responsibly. And by the way, the data in question belonged to Finance, not IT.
7. “The Story’s Contrived”
My “Tripled My Pay” narrative isn’t contrived—it’s drawn from four real-life consulting engagements. In one case, a client quadrupled my pay—raising my rate by 25% and expanding the scope by 300%—within 15 minutes of seeing the solution in action.
Did I walk in and get offered this on a plate? No. I had to show them what was possible. And what they saw was not a gimmick, but a proven, scalable enterprise process that used Excel to deliver ERP-grade results—without the cost, delays, and IT politics.
8. “You’re Replacing ERP with Excel?”
Yes—and no. What I’m doing is showing that the enterprise principles ERP was built on—centralization, structure, standardization—can be implemented faster, cheaper, and more flexibly in Excel.
ERP was supposed to replace the spreadsheet chaos. Instead, it buried business teams in complexity. When clients see what’s possible with Excel done right, they realize they don’t need to buy a $6 million system to fix a problem Excel could have solved in six weeks.
And when the ERP fails? Guess who they call back.
In Conclusion: The Real Problem
The critics aren’t wrong to question. But many are clinging to a flawed understanding of Excel, automation, and enterprise IT. They see Excel as a toy, databases as intimidating, and process transformation as the exclusive domain of big systems and IT departments.
It’s time to wake up.
Excel can be an enterprise tool—when used with enterprise principles. Database integration, automation, simplicity, and agility are not beyond the reach of Excel. They are Excel. And those who understand this are the ones tripling their value in the workplace.
So to the pushbacks, I say: thank you. You’re helping me refine the argument. And in the process, more and more people are seeing through the noise to the real opportunity in front of them.
Let’s keep going.
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