How Excel is used in Real-World Analysis

By Faith

WHAT IS EXCEL?
Excel is a powerful spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft that plays a huge role in today's data-driven world. It helps in organizing data, formatting information, performing calculations, and generating insights from the data. Excel helps us make sense of numbers and turn raw data into meaningful information that can be used in decision-making.

USE IN REAL-WORLD DATA ANALYSIS
Excel is used in various sectors in the world today, including:
1. Business Analysis
Its uses include:

• Tracking of sales by comparing monthly trends and forecasting future revenue.

• Management of Inventory by managing the stock levels and the product turnover rates.

• Financial planning by managing the budget through expense tracking and profit/loss calculation.

2. Marketing Performance
Uses of Excel in marketing performance include:

• Analysis of Campaign: Marketers track their campaigns that brought in more sales and clicks.

• Social media Metrics Analysis: Excel is used to analyze the growth in followers, engagement rates, and the reach across social media platforms.

3. Health care
Excel is used in the healthcare systems in:

• Patient record management: It is used to organize patient information, visit patient history, medication log, and lab results.

• Data Cleaning for Research- Health researchers use Excel to clean and prepare data before statistical analysis.

• Hospital Operations: Excel is used to track resource usage, such as supplies over time, and analyze patient treatment success rates.

Excel Features/Formulas

1. LOOKUP FUNCTIONS (for example, VLOOKUP AND HLOOKUP)
VLOOKUP is used to search for a specific value in a large table and return related data. For example, in a hospital dataset, we could use it to find a patient’s treatment plan by searching their ID.

2.LOGICAL FUNCTION (IF Function)
The IF formula is really helpful when analyzing performance. For instance, in marketing data, we can create a column that flags whether a product’s discount is “High” or “Low” based on a set percentage.

3.PIVOT TABLES
Pivot tables allow us to summarize large datasets quickly. We can use them to find average sales per region or average ratings by product category, without writing complex formulas.

PERSONAL REFLECTION
Before learning Excel, I used to see data as just “a lot of numbers.” Now, I see it as a place of stories and insights, and Excel is the tool that helps in finding them. Whether I’m analyzing healthcare records, marketing performance, or product reviews, Excel has made it possible to organize the mess, spot patterns, and draw real conclusions. It’s made me more confident and curious about working with data.