By Hiran de Silva
There is an irony at the heart of how Excel is used across industry.
Most of the work being done today…
does not need to be done by people at all.
Two Types of Work
In almost every Excel-driven process, there are two distinct parts:
- Mechanical work
- Data collection
- Copying and pasting
- Reconciliation
- Consolidation
- Transformation
- Intelligent work
- Analysis
- Review
- Decision-making
- Judgement
The purpose of the mechanical work is simple:
to enable the intelligent work.
But in practice, something has gone wrong.
The Inversion
What actually happens in most organisations is this:
- The mechanical work becomes the job
- The intelligent work is squeezed out
And even when the intelligent work does happen, it is:
- Late
- Messy
- Poorly informed
- Fragmented
Why?
Because what gets passed forward is not a clean, structured, reliable output…
…it is a pile of partially processed effort.
The Irony of Excel
This is where the irony becomes impossible to ignore.
Excel is perfectly capable of:
- Running the mechanical processes
- Automatically
- Unattended
- Indefinitely
- With full audit trail
- With built-in validation
In other words:
The part humans spend most of their time doing…
is the part Excel can already do by itself.
And not only that—
Excel can prepare the output specifically to enable better intelligent work:
- Clean, structured results
- Immediate availability
- Built-in checks
- Drill-down auditability
So that the human role becomes what it should be:
Oversight, judgement, and decision-making.
Three Real-World Examples
1. QCA Audit Failure
A reconciliation process had to be completed before an audit could even begin.
- The reconciliation was manual
- It was slow
- It was inconclusive
Result?
The auditor withdrew. The audit could not be performed.
The failure wasn’t Excel.
It was the failure to automate the mechanical layer.
2. GTA Travelport
Large volumes of mechanical processing were being performed…
But the output:
- Didn’t support downstream work
- Didn’t provide clarity
- Didn’t enable decision-making
Once automated:
- The mechanical effort disappeared
- The output became usable
- The process became meaningful
3. Budget Review Process
This is one of the clearest examples.
Typical process:
- Budget holders prepare data manually
- Files are sent back and forth
- An “Excel person” consolidates
- Results are delayed and inconsistent
Outcome:
- High effort
- Low value
- Poor timing
After re-engineering:
- Mechanical processing automated
- Real-time access enabled
- Review done at the click of a button
The intelligent work finally became possible.
The Bigger Question
So we have to ask:
Why are we still doing this?
The Uncomfortable Answer
The current way of working is not being driven by business need.
It is being driven by social media education.
Look at:
- YouTube tutorials
- LinkedIn posts
- “Automation” content
What do they teach?
- Step-by-step manual techniques
- Cosmetic efficiency improvements
- Tool usage—not system design
Even when the word “automate” is used…
It usually means:
“Do the same manual work… slightly faster.”
The Illusion of Automation
Search for Excel automation videos.
You will find thousands.
But ask a simple question:
Does this remove human effort entirely?
Or does it just rearrange it?
In most cases:
- It adds complexity
- It increases dependency
- It still requires human execution
It is not automation.
It is structured manual work.
The Consequence: “Excel Hell”
This creates the perfect narrative for the Excel replacement industry:
- “Excel is messy”
- “Excel doesn’t scale”
- “Excel cannot support collaboration”
- “Excel cannot handle enterprise processes”
And when you look at current practice…
they appear to be right.
But here’s the truth:
They are not describing Excel.
They are describing how Excel is being misused.
Who Drives Change?
Interestingly, transformation does not come from:
- The people doing the manual work
- The teams stuck in the process
They are often:
- Overloaded
- Risk-averse
- Grateful just to keep things running
Change comes from:
- Management with intent
- Conceptual thinkers
- Those who see the system, not the task
In every example:
- Part of the solution came from management
- The rest came from reframing the problem entirely
The Real Definition of Automation
Let’s be precise.
Automation is not:
- Power Query pipelines
- Macros that replay steps
- Faster manual workflows
True automation is:
A system that runs unattended, continuously, and reliably—
delivering outputs ready for decision-making.
The Final Insight
We are teaching people to:
- Spend more time
- Doing more work
- With a tool that could eliminate that work entirely
That is the paradox.
And it leads to a final, uncomfortable conclusion:
The way Excel is taught today…
is systematically depriving organisations of value.
Closing Thought
The question is no longer:
“How can we do this faster in Excel?”
The real question is:
“Why are we doing this at all?”
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