Recently Investintech (the company that makes the Pdf to Excel converter) asked 27 experts about the future of Excel and BI (business intelligence). Given all the new tools that are being bundled with Excel (PowerPivot, PowerQuery, PowerMap, PowerView etc) it seems that Excel is focussing heavily on this area.
You can read all the comments on the Future of Excel and BI page but the key seems to be that everyone believes Excel will continue to play a part. With truly big data Excel may struggle, but for the most part Excel has been, is, and always will be a key tool in the business intelligence process.
Some of the key comments we liked:
Chandoo– There is a running joke in BI communities. “What is the most used feature in any business intelligence solution?”- It is the Export to Excel button.
Ken Puls– No matter how many systems a company has, how big they are, or how many millions of dollars have been spent on them, the reality is that the majority of data is exported to Excel before decisions of serious consequence are made. I’d go so far as to say that there are only a handful of finance departments in the world who don’t run their critical decision making analysis through Excel.