Microsoft Excel Training for Individuals and Companies

Excel in Supply Chain Management

Is Excel used worldwide for Supply Chain Management?

Most firms rely heavily on suppliers to keep their operations running smoothly. As a result, supply chain management is a crucial corporate function, and one in which MS Excel excels.

Excel is perfect for supply chain management since it allows you to retain tabular data that can be utilised as a database with the help of VBA code. Excel also features a sophisticated filtering system that allows various data to be selected from a large number of tabular data sets.

Excel is a strong tool with the ability to store and analyse large amounts of data, making it ideal for keeping track of your supply chain.

Why is Excel so popular?

• Excel for Data-keeping

A spreadsheet tab with the following columns might be included in a simple supply chain management spreadsheet:

• Supplier Name
• Address
• Email
• Phone
• Product
• Quantity
• Price
• Date Ordered
• Date Expected
• Date Delivered

This keeps track of orders placed with vendors and enables for price comparisons between suppliers. It also allows you to verify delivery dates and see if deliveries from a specific source are on time.

The filters provide you a lot of freedom when it comes to selecting specific data. You may, for example, look at ordered dates between the start and finish dates or filter out late deliveries. You may easily add a formula and a filter to the column to compare the expected date to the delivered date.

You can quickly observe which providers deliver on time and which ones are late.

• Expanding your Spreadsheet

To show more information on items and providers, you might add more tabs to your supply chain spreadsheet. For example, you may have a tabular list of products with information on which source they can come from, their cost, whether they are mission-critical, and their lead periods.

If the product order is not urgent, you can concentrate on price and choose the lowest-priced provider, as long as the lead time is adequate. If you need a product quickly, you should prioritise the supplier with the quickest lead time and pricing as a secondary factor. If the product is mission-critical, it becomes much more critical.

You may also create a tabular table of contact information for each provider, including direct phone numbers and email addresses. When it comes to hunting down deliveries, having someone you know at a company comes in handy.

You can extract the information you need to make purchasing decisions and manage your supply chain by utilising filters on tabular data.

• Working with a Database in the Supply Chain

Taking this concept a step further, you might use VBA code to enhance your Supply Chain Management spreadsheet and connect it to a database, such as Microsoft Access.

By integrating your Excel spreadsheet with VBA code, you may quickly establish a relational database. Excel forms can provide a professional-looking front end for users to update data and query the database in the same manner that Excel filters may be used.

You may rapidly generate reports specific to your needs, such as the top-rated suppliers and the products they offer. Who has the quickest turnaround time?

Why should you learn Excel to manage your business’ supply chain?

• Excel is a tool that is used all over the world

Most businesses use Excel on a regular basis, therefore mastering it to its full potential has become critical. Microsoft’s Office suite is used by 1.2 billion individuals globally, with 1 billion of them using Excel. It’s on the verge of becoming a worldwide language. For example, the number of individuals who speak English is about equal to the number of people who use Excel today.

• Microsoft Excel doesn’t change all that much.

In recent years, Excel’s interface and compatibility have remained unchanged. If you know Excel today, there’s no reason you won’t know it in ten years, and For the rest of your life, you only need to train once.

In terms of data, Excel is likewise growing increasingly powerful. Excel has allowed users to use up to 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns since 2007, which is more than enough for even enormous databases to be analysed. The only restriction is the processing power of your processor. There are, however, workarounds available.

• Excel helps you automate processes.

You can automate tasks in Excel. The most common scenario is as follows: the organisation has an ERP or inventory management programme from which data (CA, Qty, Margin, Stock…) must be extracted. In Excel macros, the data will be opened, examined, and consolidated. Despite this, only a few people have mastered macros. But I’ll go over everything with you here, and it’s not that difficult.

• Excel is a versatile programme.

Excel is extremely adaptable. Unlike the most well-known ERPs (SAP, jda, IBM AS/400…), anyone with access to data may alter Excel. Unlike previous software, no computer or other authorization is required to access the data and calculations. As a result, these ERPs always allow you to export data to Excel files.

• Excel mastery will undoubtedly help you advance in your job.

Finally, Excel can help you advance your profession, particularly in Supply Chain. You will stand out from your peers if you understand Excel; you will be entrusted with more initiatives, new strategic data, new strategic competencies, and thus greater responsibilities as a result. You’re going to establish yourself as indispensable.

Conclusion

Most individuals believe they can learn Excel, yet they rarely use it to its full potential. Excel can appear costly and annoying at first glance, but it’s vital to get past that and get to the heart of the problem, because utilising Excel properly in company, regardless of your function, can be really beneficial.