—or why Power Query dazzles enthusiasts but fails the generals
By Hiran de Silva
This piece is a response to a recent LinkedIn post by Richard Nero, where he observed a striking divide:
- Ask a room of Excel MVPs about Power Query → every hand goes up.
- Ask a room of finance professionals → polite indifference, sometimes outright disinterest.
That contrast is real. But it isn’t mysterious. It’s the same contrast you’d see if you tried to sell lightsabers outside a Star Wars convention.
The Lightsaber Analogy
If you attend a Star Wars convention, the most prominent artefact on display will be a lightsaber.
Fans bring them. Demonstrate them. Duel with them. Upgrade them. Obsess over them.
It’s a roaring business.
Now ask a different question:
How many modern armies—NATO, the US Department of Defense, the UK Ministry of Defence, or even Russia and China—equip their forces with lightsabers?
None.
Not because lightsabers aren’t impressive.
But because professional warfare has different requirements.
That is the precise distinction Richard is pointing to—whether intentionally or not.
Two Audiences, Two Jobs
There really are two audiences:
1. Enthusiasts (the Star Wars crowd)
- Excel MVPs
- Trainers
- YouTubers
- Social-media demonstrators
Their job is to show capability.
Spectacle matters. Elegance matters. Surprise matters.
Power Query is perfect here.
Folder-based consolidation demos are visually stunning.
Thousands of files collapse into one model.
Links disappear. Magic happens.
That’s the lightsaber.
2. Enterprise Finance Leaders (the generals)
- CFOs
- Controllers
- Regional and business-unit heads
- Boards
Their job is not to be impressed.
Their job is to deliver outcomes—on time, collaboratively, at scale.
This is where the lightsaber fails.
Why Consolidation Is the Wrong Hill to Die On
Consolidation is the number one Power Query demo use case.
Search YouTube: thousands of videos.
Search the web: tens of thousands of tutorials.
But enterprise budgeting consolidation did not appear in the last decade.
It has existed for generations.
I’ve personally worked on budgets with:
- 400 operating units
- Multiple management layers
- Hundreds of simultaneous decision-makers
- A 2–3 week global negotiation window
This process has three non-negotiable requirements:
- Live collaboration
Budget holders must see the impact of changes immediately, during discussions. - Familiar presentation
Outputs must look like the P&L formats managers already use and trust. - Global concurrency
Hundreds of users, scattered worldwide, working at the same time.
The Two Deal Breakers
Power Query breaks this process in two fundamental ways:
❌ Deal Breaker #1 — Batch, not live
Power Query consolidation is inherently a batch refresh process.
Changes are only visible after an administrator refreshes the model.
That destroys the live negotiation loop.
I raised this exact issue publicly with Jason Koo when he promoted PQ-based consolidation.
There was no answer—because there isn’t one.
❌ Deal Breaker #2 — The output
The result is a pivot-based abstraction, not the operational P&L formats managers work with daily.
Yes, pivots are powerful.
No, they are not what budget holders negotiate over.
Why the Generals Say “No”
You can almost hear the conversation:
“Very impressive. But how do my 145 regional managers negotiate live?
How do updates ripple instantly across the hierarchy?
How does this work while we’re on the call?”
That’s when the lightsaber salesman falls silent.
The Real Irony: Excel Already Solved This
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Power Query’s core idea—
load data into tables, then query and aggregate it
…was already available in Excel long before Power Query existed.
Excel can:
- Use a central, shared relational data model
- Accept updates from hundreds of satellite workbooks
- Query results live
- Preserve familiar reporting formats
No IT bottleneck.
No year-long database project.
No governance apocalypse.
That’s not theory. That’s how Excel was engineered.
This is what I meant when I said—provocatively—that Power Query is obsolete at enterprise scale.
Not useless.
Just misapplied.
On “You Just Need More Training”
When Mark Proctor suggests business leaders should simply invest more in Power Query training, he’s really saying:
“We should teach generals how to use lightsabers.”
But armies don’t win by mastering hobbyist weapons.
They win by using architectures designed for real warfare.
The Final Distinction
Richard Nero is absolutely right about the two audiences.
Where the argument goes wrong is assuming that enthusiasm translates into enterprise adoption.
It doesn’t.
- MVPs are not accountable to boards.
- Trainers don’t sign off budgets.
- Demonstrations are not deployments.
That’s why posts like Christopher T Fennell’s—describing 1,200-file consolidations—are so revealing.
They expose the scale of the problem… and the inadequacy of batch tools to solve it.
Closing Thought
Power Query is a magnificent lightsaber.
It dazzles. It excites. It photographs beautifully.
But enterprise finance is not a cosplay event.
And generals don’t buy weapons because they look impressive under stage lights—
they buy what wins wars.
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