
Wanted: A Rules Engine for Excel
James Kwak writes about the role of Excel in the JPMorgan 2012 trading loss After the London Whale trade blew up, the Model Review Group discovered that the model had not been automated and found several other errors. Most spectacularly, “After subtracting the old rate from the new rate, the spreadsheet divided by their sum […]

Worse Than Drugs, Booze and Nicotine — Why Can’t Procurement Shake the Excel Addiction? (Part 2)
I reckon that I personally spend between one and two hours per day in Excel, and that’s without doing any active sourcing projects anymore. Back when I was directly involved with sourcing events and the product planning associated with rolling out new technologies around them, I was probably using Excel for 3-4 hours per day. I’m not alone. CombineNet’s recent study looking at the Excel addiction in corporate procurement teams found similar high-usage patterns. In looking at 100 organizations in April and May of 2011, CombineNet found…

Worse Than Drugs, Booze, Nicotine — Why Can’t Procurement Shake the Excel Addiction? (Part 1)
We all have our vices here in the Spend Matters office. Sheena will barely say hello before she’s ingested at least two cups of coffee. I personally drink (daily) more green tea than probably a small town in Japan does. And the wh…

Spend Matters Study: Forget Ariba, SAP and Oracle — World Class Procurement Organizations Use Excel
In conjunction with the Centre for Supply Management Business Research based in Leeds, UK and Société de Gestion des Opérations in Nice, France, Spend Matters is pleased to publish preliminary findings from an ongoing study exa…