Excel, the one-trick pony that does everything. For the few years that I've known and used Excel, it has really become an indispensable tool. Although many say it will soon be disposed of, I believe Excel is here to stay, and here's why:
- Simplified Functions:
Excel makes it so easy for a user to start performing operations on data; simply click within any cell, add an equal sign (=) followed by your function and its parameters, and you're all set.
Additionally, Excel provides a plethora of functions to choose from, tackling almost any use case. Some examples include:
=SUMIF() - calculates the sum of a range of values if they meet certain criteria.
=XLOOKUP() allows you to look up values in your sheet, for example, employee IDs, and return values such as their names and phone numbers.
=AGGREGATE() performs operations such as sum, average, and max.
- Incredible visualizations
Excel can be used to make interactive visualizations such as bar charts, pie charts, and histograms.
What sets Excel apart from other tools for visuals is the ease with which you can make them in Excel.
You just have to choose the fields you want to be visualized and the type of visual you want, be it a scatter plot or a clustered chart, and vwa-lah, the visual is displayed instantly.
- Small-scale friendly
Excel works very well for a small dataset; this is especially useful in scenarios where an organization is small and wants instant delivery rather than taking months using other complex tools.
Finally, although Excel has made huge strides in making data analysis easier, there are some areas where it lags behind. One is difficulty working on large datasets; this makes it harder for big organizations to work with it.
All in all, I believe that Excel is an awesome tool that can be really useful depending on the use case. Thank you
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