Mută-ți procesele de business din Excel pe o platformă SaaS

1. Why do we like spreadsheets?
2. When do spreadsheets fail?

• 1. Collaborative work is impractical
• 2. Lack of a single source of truth
• 3. Maintaining spreadsheets quickly becomes a big headache
• 4. Are there other reasons why spreadsheets fail?

      3. The Oraroo approach

Spreadsheets are very easy to use and flexible. These are their strengths.

They are also cheap to implement and easy to use. And non-IT users can easily implement simple business management functions.

We even see many early-stage "software" startups starting their idea using a spreadsheet. It's a great way to get started and function. It can help validate the startup's idea before engaging in actual software construction.

But companies tend to push spreadsheets beyond their limits. And these quickly become too difficult to manage.

2.1 Collaborative work is impractical

The classic example is the one with two users opening the same spreadsheet and making changes to it. A spreadsheet is most often designed to be updated by a single user at a time. Which one will transfer the changes to disk first? Are the modified datasets the same? Will they be in conflict?

Maybe use online versions of the spreadsheets that address the data conflicts mentioned above? However, as online spreadsheets grow, their use becomes increasingly difficult. It is increasingly difficult to find the relevant information in the large volume of data. Sometimes the connection also plays a role and the access time increases. But what happens if someone deletes the file shared online?

Using a spreadsheet to manage a process that has fewer than five users is most likely feasible, but only for simple processes and when there is a small amount of data to maintain. Above this level, either in terms of complexity or number of users, it becomes problematic.

What are the risks?

• Data conflict
• Duplication of time and effort
• Costs with maintenance or the intervention of an IT specialist, even for simple data requirements

What are the advantages of a specialized online platform?

• Several users can simultaneously maintain the data, with traceability of changes
• IT controls that prevent accidental overwriting of data
• Correct management of processes of higher complexity and a large number of users

   

2.2 The absence of a single source of truth

Spreadsheets can be linked to central data repositories, but most often are not.

Experience tells us that there end up being multiple copies of the data, often handled independently by different people. From here it follows that the implementation and design of the spreadsheets become very "personal". Sometimes a lot of information ends up in "free text" fields. Other times, the manipulated data may actually have different meanings from user to user and spreadsheet.

What are the risks?

• Duplication of efforts
• No source of "truth"
• Hard-to-use "free text" fields for data analysis
• Bad decisions made on inaccurate data

What advantages does a specialized online platform bring?

• Unique database and elimination of duplicates
• The only source of truth at the company level
• Profitable decisions made on correct data and with the same significance at the company level

2.3 Maintaining spreadsheets quickly becomes a big headache

Spreadsheets that have a basic use are either completely isolated or created and used by a single person. If they are used by multiple people over a long period of time, they tend to have multiple authors.

Business evolves, processes change. Legislation is changing. From time to time, changes are needed.

If the original author of the spreadsheet is no longer present, it is extremely difficult to make changes or keep the spreadsheet functional.

Changes made by different people over time involve non-unitary approaches, definitions, descriptions and formulas. They can generate inconsistencies in the data, making the results difficult to use or reconcile.

Last but not least, manual data entry and multiple copy-paste operations can generate errors. Some errors are obvious. Others are not at all obvious and precisely those that escape are the most dangerous because they can be replicated further and in other spreadsheets.

What are the risks?

• The existence of several authors (and ways of looking at the meaning of the information) makes the data difficult to use and reconcile
• The absence of the original authors makes the maintenance of spreadsheets very difficult
• Errors can easily creep in and repeat themselves

What advantages does a specialized online platform bring?

• Unique design using processes based on best practices and updated with legislative changes
• Eliminating data errors by checking data in the application screens as well as unitary process logic
• Data access based on access rights (read/modify)

2.4 There are other reasons why spreadsheets fail

• Sometimes it is necessary for clients to interact with the information in the spreadsheets - data access mechanisms are needed
• Sometimes the served process needs data from other sources – for example data from other systems or even external (accessible via API). Although it is also possible in spreadsheets, it is complex and difficult to operate and maintain
• Often the users of the served processes want or need access from anywhere, maybe even including mobile
• The business is ready to grow and the spreadsheets are getting harder and harder

All these are reasons why companies move their business processes to specialized online platforms.

Oraroo is a specialized online platform available in the cloud (SaaS), which implements processes based on best practices and updated with legislation, to increase the efficiency and profitability of consulting and outsourcing companies.

By implementing Oraroo, a single source of truth is obtained in terms of operations, commercial aspects as well as human resources administration aspects. Based on this data, the correct decisions can be made, so necessary for business growth.