Is it possible to be too good at spreadsheets?

22 February 2010

1 minute read

Is it possible to be too good at spreadsheets?

A former head of M&A at one European investment bank thinks so.

"You get some people who are so good at putting together spreadsheets, and who enjoy it so much, that it ends up being most of what they do," he tells us. "There comes a point in your career when you have to make an effort to spend more time in front of clients, otherwise you get trapped into being a spreadsheet specialist."

For those stuck in this situation, particularly at senior associate level and above, he recommends declining to work on spreadsheets when asked.

Does this not risk making the individuals concerned look churlish? "Not if everyone knows they're very good at spreadsheets," he claims.

However, a junior banker with more recent experience of spreadsheet jockeydom points out that this isn't really how it works. "If you're asked to do something, you usually just need to get on and do it," she says.

AUTHORSarah Butcher

Global Editor

Za
Zack (not my real name!)
25 February 2010
Sarah, your article is spot on!
I came to the same realisation myself a while back and
outsourced all my Excel assignments.
(One of their team is a former hedgefund colleague whom took the Excel track you mention. )
The company he is now with is London based, reliable, discrete and deliver fantastic results, leaving me free to focus on more important activities - upgrading my career!
The bonuses and promotions I won as a result of his quality work have paid for the invoices many times over!
The money I spent on having them do my work is a laughable fraction of the money I made as a result.
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Be
BeenAround
23 February 2010
Why is it that people think that this is black or white. Different strokes for different people. e.g. a guy from st pauls/oxford working in the uk team does not really need to be proficient technically (most likely his godfather is a senior MD) BUT a guy from dehli/ukraine working in healthcare does need to be proficient to get his associate/vp promotion. Go for what works for you then build from there!
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Da
DatabaseGuru
23 February 2010
It is an unfortunate reality in many roles and insutry that the most skilled workers struggle to climb up the corporate ladder, partly because their skills are hard to replace. In any given organization, the IT leader does not necessarily know the most about IT, the CFO is not necessarily the best accountant, the legal director is not necessarily the best lawyer, the head of R&D not necessarily the best scientist, etc...
As a separate consideration, it is also very unfortunate that most people don't realize the limitations of spreadsheets and don't appreciate when databases are more suited. If it takes you 10 VBA functions and 20 super-long formulas to do it, then you shouldn't be doing it in Excel! Especially tasks like looking up data, grouping, joining, summarizing etc should be done in databases only.
Offices would be way more productive if people bothered to learn SQL (a database language) instead of VBA. I still remember a manager of mine who forbad me to use Access for an analysis because she wanted to check all the formulas in Excel herself! Yet in Access I could have done the job in a fraction of the time...
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Fl
Flock of Seagulls
23 February 2010
@AK - but try convincing your MD that your VBA tricked out spreadsheet is actually generating the correct result!
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Is
Isaac
23 February 2010
Spreadsheet specialists always suffer in the long term. Whilst they are up until the small hours crafting the world's most elegant and flexible valuation model, a more technically challenged analyst is reviewing the SPA etc. And when you get to associate, that person will suddenly be more highly regarded than you, as you come to realise that most of M&A execution is just filing and admin...
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