The basis of modern business
Microsoft Excel remains one of the best known software programs since the modern computer was invented. Indeed, so successful has Excel – and other similar spreadsheet applications – been that they remain at the heart of many businesses.
Whether it’s a sole trader or a global conglomerate, it’s more than likely that simple spreadsheets are the primary carrier of their so-called business critical information and data.
Indeed it is unsurprising to find financial institutions running hundreds of thousands, millions even, of active spreadsheets, and why? Because they are flexible, easy to use and practical.
The ubiquitous nature of spreadsheets – and their significance in the modern world – has long been recognised by many tech firms, including ClusterSeven (I should declare an interest – this is a client).
Back in 2003 ClusterSeven began offering automated data management tools to monitor, track and control use of spreadsheets, and over the past decade the firm has since grown rapidly into a major solutions provider with clients across the world.
What’s fascinating about this, moreover, is that over the past two years or so, financial regulators and similar stakeholders in the global economy are increasingly recognising the role that basic spreadsheets play in financial, economic and business markets.
More and more they want to know how firms manage their spreadsheets – who has control over them and how firms know that the data they contain is correct.