An Introduction to Microsoft Excel
So what is Microsoft Excel?
Why is it so powerful?
Why is it listed in almost every job description?
These were the questions that I was asking myself while sitting at the desk of my first job on my first day in December 2014. As I was shadowing each one of my team members, there was not a single person that did not have this program open. This program seemed to be the core of my job and I had no idea what it was.
This program — Excel — was something I had to figure out and figure out fast.
To make sense of Excel, I distilled what needed to be learned down to three things:
- I needed to learn the foundation of what Excel was
- I needed to understand why my company was using it
- I needed to understand how people got so good with it
If this sounds like something that you can relate to, hopefully I can save you some time to walk you through how I figured it out.
Point 1: I needed to learn the foundation of what the program was
I opened up a blank Sheet in Excel and I saw a bunch of boxes…
Here were the basics that clicked for me:
Cells
- Microsoft Excel is simply a bunch of boxes, called cells, that have row (1–1,048,576) and column (A through 16,384th letter) coordinates. If you want to reference a cell, you just give its row-column coordinates — cell A1, cell B5, cell AG7.
Formulas
- Formulas are simple equations (1 + 1, 2 x 2, 3 / 1) or functions (complex equations built into Excel) that can be done within cells. Here’s an example of a built-in Excel function:
- IF: The IF statement can give different outputs based on whether the condition, that you specify, is TRUE or FALSE. For example, the formula =IF(A1=1,”cell A1 is equal to 1”, “cell A1 is not equal to 1”) checks if cell A1 is equal to the number 1; if it is, then the cell will return “cell A1 is equal to 1”; if its not equal to 1, the cell will return “cell A1 is not equal to 1”.
Models
- Excel models are multiple cells, with formulas or inputs (cells without formulas that act as starting point for equations) in each, that most likely reference each other. The most basic model might be one to calculate profit margin. If you enter a cost of a product into one cell, the profit margin that you want to make on that product into another cell, you could have the last cell simply apply the formula =Cost Cell / (1 — Margin % Cell) and that would give you the final selling price.
Point 2: I needed to understand why my company was using it
As I started to understand what Microsoft Excel was and how it worked, I needed to understand why my company was actually using it.
My company was using Excel for the Models bullet point that I mentioned in Point 1. Every company starts out with raw materials, the building blocks of the final product, processes those raw materials in some way, and then sells a final product. Whether its actually using Excel for documenting the cost of each step of the process I just outlined or its using Excel to do a separate analysis from a system export, you can build an Excel model from those costs and use it to do quite a few different things. Excel models can help you with almost any sort of analysis that you’re trying to do in business.
My company was using Excel to understand costing, pricing, and strategy.
Point 3: I needed to understand how people got so good with Excel
Ok, I get how to use Excel and now I get why my company is using Excel, but how are they all experts with it?
As you may have guessed, getting good with Excel can be as simple as just using it, but, from my experience, that’s just a small piece of it. Becoming an expert with Excel requires you to deliberately practice new formulas, functions, and keyboard shortcuts daily. All of the experts at my company got to the point they were at by solving challenging Excel problems on a regular basis. After almost 10 years of daily Excel use, I 100% stand behind the idea that pushing yourself is where the real growth comes from. What does pushing yourself in Excel mean? Learn an excel shortcut every single day, when you’re about to send someone a model, think to yourself “how can I make this better?” even if its only slightly, create a model that you’re interested in but was not a direct task assigned to you, etc… The possibilities are endless. And, from my experience, you will know if you’re not pushing yourself — the feeling of complacency is the enemy.
By doing the above 3 points, I became relatively good at Excel. By doing point #3 consistently, I became an expert.
