The Reverse Gear That Everyone Forgot: Excel’s Hidden Enterprise Power

By Hiran de Silva

Imagine a world where most drivers don’t know their car has a reverse gear.

The absence of reverse would be a nightmare. Parking becomes impossible, cul-de-sacs a trap, three-point turns an exercise in futility. This is so well known it even has a name: Driving Hell.

Now picture what happens next:
An entire new industry emerges selling specialist vehicles whose one big selling point is that they have reverse gear. These vehicles are inflexible, less agile than cars, eye-wateringly expensive, and often leave their buyers with deep regret. Yet the industry grows into a $100 billion market, fuelled by constant promotion of one message:

Ordinary cars don’t have reverse gear.

But here’s the kicker:
All cars already do have reverse gear. It’s built in. It always has been. The problem isn’t the car. The problem is that most drivers simply don’t know it’s there, or why it’s there.

Excel’s Reverse Gear Moment

This is not about cars, of course. It’s about Excel.

For over two decades, a powerful narrative has been pushed by the ERP and FP&A tool industry: Excel cannot do enterprise-grade architecture. They brand this supposed limitation as Excel Hell—and present their products as the solution.

Like the “reverse-only vehicles” of our analogy, these tools often do one thing well, but at enormous cost. They are rigid, less agile than Excel, and often take years to deliver value. Many buyers later regret the switch, but by then the investment is sunk.

The truth?
Excel already has enterprise architecture capabilities. It always has. Built into Office since the 1990s is a client-server, hub-and-spoke model that allows Excel to connect seamlessly with relational databases (Access, SQL, cloud-based servers) – thus extending Excel’s capabilities to enterprise level. This is not theory. It has been proven, at scale, in real companies, for 25 years.

I know, because I’ve implemented it myself: global budgeting across 50 countries, consolidations across hundreds of business units, account reconciliations spanning millions of rows—all in Excel. As mentioned WIRED magazine, my clients have paid six figures for Excel spreadsheets implemented in this way.

Why the Illusion Persists

Why, then, does the myth of “Excel Hell” persist?

• Awareness gap: Most Excel users—and even many IT leaders—simply don’t know that Excel can operate in a hub-and-spoke, client-server mode.
• Training gap: Mainstream Excel education focuses on formulas, charts, and now Power Query. Almost nobody teaches enterprise architecture with Excel.
• Commercial incentives: The $100 billlion planning-tools industry thrives on repeating the message that Excel is “inadequate.” Their entire business model depends on it.

The result is a false narrative: that Excel is only a single-user tool, forever condemned to create silos, fragmented business processes, and errors.

The Real Opportunity

Here’s where the business opportunity lies:

1. For businesses: To realise they already own the tools they need for enterprise-grade planning and reporting. No $5 million software rollout required. The reverse gear is already there—in the Microsoft Office suite, sitting on every desktop.
2. For professionals: To learn and apply this under-taught capability. Those who do become invaluable. I’ve seen it time and again: people who unlock Excel’s enterprise power triple their pay because they solve problems their colleagues and managers thought unsolvable.
3. For leaders: To challenge the false narrative. Instead of outsourcing agility to expensive tools, leaders can empower their teams to design pipelines, workflows, and enterprise systems in Excel—faster, cheaper, and with full transparency.

Proof Over Rhetoric

This isn’t philosophy. It’s demonstrable. I can show you—in minutes—Excel systems where 400 budgeting templates feed live into a central database, where consolidations of hundreds of entities happen at the click of a button, where board-ready reports update instantly.

When people see it, the illusion of Excel Hell vanishes. Just like watching someone shift into reverse for the first time.

The Call to Action

The $100 billion “reverse-only vehicle” industry is not going away. They will continue to promote the narrative that Excel lacks reverse gear. But the opportunity is clear:

• If you’re a business leader, stop buying into the illusion.
• If you’re a finance professional, learn the skills to unlock Excel’s true capabilities.
• If you’re an innovator, this is your chance: evangelise, demonstrate, and lead.

Because here’s the truth: Excel has always had a reverse gear.
The only question is—will you see it? will you use it?