Too often we witness scenes in which frustrated employees wait minutes for an Excel sheet, an unsuitable tool for data management, to update or load. A wake-up call to think about the company approach to the data stack, adopting the solutions that Microsoft makes available.
The parsley of almost every company: Excel
Who among us has not, at least once, experienced the slowness of an Excel sheet when the data exceeds thousands of rows and dozens of columns? Using Excel as a primary repository and operational interface may seem like an immediate and familiar solution, but as business needs grow, this tool quickly reveals its limitations. Imagine a situation in which, every time a single cell is updated, the program takes an almost surreal amount of time to process the information. This not only causes an operational annoyance, but a major obstacle that penalizes the productivity and efficiency of the entire company.
The problem arises precisely from the improper use of Excel, but in general of spreadsheets: used not as a basic calculation and analysis tool, but as a database, it risks becoming the Achilles’ heel of every data stack.
Data entry for Excel, not on Excel
Microsoft provides Microsoft Forms. Instead of manually entering data into an Excel sheet, we can create interactive forms that simplify information collection but also ensure high data quality thanks to built-in restrictions and validations.
An example: a company that deals with sales of high-priced products, such as windows, doors or industrial machinery, finds itself managing potential customers and clients manually, with all the inefficiencies that this entails. With Microsoft Forms, it becomes possible to design a form that requires fundamental data such as name, surname, email, and, if necessary, further details, making interaction with the system immediate and accessible everywhere, even from mobile devices. That input on Microsoft forms would output an online Excel file.
Microsoft Forms becomes the first piece of a data stack developed in the Microsoft environment. In this way, each operation becomes a reasoned process, in which the module not only receives the information, but validates it, preventing errors and guaranteeing greater coherence (quality) of the data.
From collection to visualization: the move to PowerBI
Once collected, data requires aggregation and/or in-depth analysis to transform into strategic information. This is where PowerBI comes into play, Microsoft’s business intelligence tool, capable of connecting to databases, which allows you to create reports. Instead of loading entire datasets from an Excel sheet (possibly online and not local file), it also becomes possible to connect to views of a database, a solution that drastically reduces processing times.
You will say: “I can also create reports on Excel”. Depending on the report you create in Excel, I refer you to what is written above: Excel was born as a spreadsheet.
Integration and scalability: the potential of a data plant with Microsoft
Microsoft offers a series of tools that, if used in synergy, allow you to build a robust and flexible stack. For example, in addition to Microsoft Forms and Excel, we have the possibility of connecting PowerBI to local or cloud databases (Azure), using secure and reliable connections.
This integrated approach helps solve traditional data management challenges and prepare your business for future expansion. Whatever the sector of activity, from e-commerce to industrial production, the advantage comes from the ability to have data validated and updated in real time, essential for timely and targeted decisions.
Conclusions
The adoption of a data stack with Microsoft represents an operational improvement, a change of perspective. This is not a simple technological update, but a cultural change, of a company that is based on data, putting efficiency, precision (allowed for example by validation) and scalability at the centre.
Do you have a starting Excel-based data plant? Let’s talk in a free first call.