Microsoft Excel Your Way to a Better Job

Do you want a better job?
Yes!
How do you get a better job?
Deafening silence.
Oh…

People don’t stay on the same path nowadays; they have many jobs and often a few careers. Corporate loyalty is disappearing as people feel uncertain about the stability of the company they belong to and actually, what they want to do. Job security is seen as an antiquated concept and people are discovering that they need to be more flexible.

All this said; you can benefit from this uncertainty with the right mind-set. You no longer have to wait the obligatory 5 or 10 years to move along the career path and work your way up to middle management and beyond.

With uncertainty comes opportunity.

Let’s take a simple example; revenue leakage is often a fear within any business. Companies don’t want to miss out on revenue and there is often a lot of anecdotes on how to ensure we charge for everything that we do. I’ve seen many people investigate this phenomena but not many substantiate a solution with any evidence.
If you can’t measure and track something, then how can you improve it?

Can you see where this is going? Of course! Excel is a fundamental business tool which is hugely versatile and is an important element in the success of any business and any employee within a business.

This all sounds very straight-forward so far, but then why do so many people get it wrong?

Or worse, they don’t every bother to try?

Well, it isn’t easy and it’s not just about using Excel to an advanced level of functionality. It’s about using Excel intelligently to solve problems. To understand how a business works and how you can map that within Excel in order to come up with a solution.

To many people just take a look at what data is available and come up with rudimentary explanations.

BUT NOT SOLUTIONS!

You can’t determine revenue leakage by looking at costs, nor by looking at solely looking at what we charge the customer. We need to look at how many times a product was returned faulty or a piece of work had amendments. How much do lose by not getting things right first time?

However that’s not the end of the story. Next we need to consider operational efficiency. Are we losing revenue because of inefficient processes or duplication of effort. Are the rate cards correct? Are we covering material costs or the labour time?

So many questions, so many things to investigate. Pick one and investigate it, you never know what you might uncover.

STOP using Excel to just show results.

STOP using Excel to explain results (and only a few people actually take the time to do that)

START using Excel to come up with solutions!

Now we get to the crux of the matter. How can you do this?

What do you need to know in order to step up?

“It’s not about just being great with Excel, but how you use Excel to solve problems.”

This ebook talks through 5 levels of Excel use and how using Excel can provide the tools to really make the world your oyster – but you need to decide how far you actually want to go. It’s no good learning how to create complex business models if you want to be in a client-facing role, but in the same breath it’s worth knowing how to create easy to understand dashboards if you want to work up the ladder towards senior management or CEO level.

In short – you need to figure out what you need to know, and that’s what this ebook is designed to help you discover. On top of that I’ll give you some great ways to put Excel to strategic use and make the right moves to prime and ask for that pay rise.