A recent survey conducted by @able2extract explored the future of MS Excel in Business Intelligence workflows, garnering insights from a range of industry experts. Here’s what they had to say:

1. Excel: A Valuable BI Tool

Excel retains its significance as an essential BI tool due to its unmatched capability of providing a sandbox-like environment for exploring and analyzing data. Its user-friendly interface empowers individuals to play with data and uncover valuable insights.

2. The Duality of Excel’s Impact

While Excel continues to revolutionize big data analytics, it faces a paradoxical stance within the industry. Business users find Excel instrumental in the big data life cycle, utilizing it either as a data source or a data target for analytics results and as a presentation layer. Nevertheless, IT departments often struggle with governance challenges when it comes to Excel’s unregulated usage.

3. Excel and Big Data Analytics

The rise of big data brings forth challenges in managing massive complexity and extracting meaningful insights. Excel’s flexibility and ease of use make it a suitable platform for some aspects of big data analytics. Features like Power Pivot and Power Query empower users to work with larger data sets, but whether Excel will emerge as the definitive app for big data analytics remains uncertain.

4. Data Quality and Governance in Big Data

As big data complexity increases, data quality and governance become even more vital. The democratization of data necessitates answering critical questions about data access, accuracy, aggregation, and more to ensure reliable results.

5. Synergy of Excel-like Platforms and Big Data

Modern big data platforms, like Data360 Analyze, combine the advantages of spreadsheet-like environments with the power of Hadoop. They strive to democratize big data analytics, while simultaneously managing associated risks and costs.

6. Excel’s Role in Driving Big Data Adoption

The burning question: Will Excel, or an Excel-like platform, be the catalyst for widespread big data adoption in your business? Share your thoughts on this intriguing topic.

In conclusion, Excel continues to be a formidable player in the realm of data science and Business Intelligence. While its user-friendly nature makes it invaluable for data exploration, managing data quality and governance challenges remains a priority in the evolving landscape of big data.