By Hiran de Silva
Let me give you the short version of my argument.
Give the Excel community an enterprise-scale business problem.
It can be a familiar business problem. Or take one of the popular Excel scenarios being taught on YouTube and simply scale it up.
Now introduce the things that happen in the real world.
Scale.
Reach.
Collaboration.
Consolidation.
Connected processes.
Governance.
Audit trail.
And ask:
How would you solve this with Excel?
Watch what happens.
People who have learned Excel through the conventional Excel education ecosystem will naturally try to extend the techniques they already know.
But those techniques overwhelmingly operate inside individual workbooks.
So, when collaboration is required, they start sharing workbooks.
They email them.
They put them on SharePoint.
They create folders.
They create copies.
They collect spreadsheets from different people and consolidate them.
And before long, they have created a point-to-point process architecture.
Now show that architecture to the IT department or the Excel-replacement industry.
They will say:
“There you are. That’s exactly the problem with spreadsheets.”
And they have a point.
It is a mess.
But here is the disruption.
The mess is not inevitable because Excel is being used.
The mess is the consequence of the architecture in which Excel is being used.
Instead of distributing the data among dozens or hundreds of spreadsheets and then moving those spreadsheets around, put the data at the centre.
Let Excel become the client.
Let the spreadsheets GET the data they require from that central source and PUT their changes back.
Suddenly, something remarkable happens.
You still have Excel.
But you also have scale.
Reach.
Collaboration.
Consolidation.
Connected processes.
Governance.
Permissions.
Audit trail.
And manageability.
That is exactly what Hiran demonstrates with his enterprise Excel models.
Take the Month-End Account Review challenge.
First ask how somebody equipped with conventional Excel education would approach it.
Observe the resulting process.
Then compare that with the client-server version.
Or take the REG Call Handler Challenge.
A cascading dropdown works perfectly well when its source data is sitting inside the workbook.
Now scale the problem.
Instead of one local source, suppose the information is coming from warehouses across the organisation.
Immediately, the problem moves beyond the workbook.
And that is where conventional Excel education runs out of road.
The interesting thing is what happens next.
The Excel community often says:
“That’s no longer a job for Excel.”
The Excel-replacement industry says:
“Exactly. That’s why you need a proper system.”
So, strangely enough, the Excel industry and the anti-Excel industry arrive at the same conclusion.
Then Hiran demonstrates the same enterprise process working with Excel.
And that creates a problem for both sides.
The Excel education establishment has to explain why these architectural skills are largely absent from Excel education.
And the Excel-replacement industry has to explain why organisations supposedly need to spend enormous sums replacing Excel to obtain capabilities that can demonstrably be achieved while retaining Excel.
There is, however, one group for whom this is potentially very good news.
Management.
Because management can now ask a different question.
Not:
“What system do we need to buy?”
But:
“Who knows how to do this?”
And that creates the next problem.
How does an organisation distinguish somebody who genuinely possesses this competence from somebody who merely possesses an impressive collection of Excel skills?
How do you test whether somebody can actually design a scalable business process rather than simply demonstrate Excel features?
That is why Hiran devised challenges such as the Gordon Ramsay Experiment.
They are not tests of how many Excel features somebody knows.
They are tests of whether somebody can take a real business requirement and design an appropriate solution.
It is the difference between knowing every button, lever and control inside a car…
and being able to drive that car successfully on the public highway.
And that, in one sentence, is the problem with Excel education.
It teaches far too much about what happens inside the workbook—and far too little about the business world outside it.
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