Tickets are now available for “How to use excel to link information from different sources” training course on the 1st of December 4pm till 6.00, near Liverpool Street. Cost is £30 which includes materials, savouries and drinks. Networking to continue afterwards. Click on link to book.
Book your tickets via Eventbrite – Book Now
This is definitely for people who already possess an intermediate level of excel as you will need to be similar with the basic functions and layout of the program in order to get the most of it. Other introductory courses will be run shortly. For examples of what can be done go to our downloads section.
For more details of what will be covered read the article below:
I was on contract a few yeas ago, installing a warehouse logistics software system for a company in the clothing industry. I happened to be configuring the package in the same room as the stock manager and I saw him slowly and painstakingly comparing numbers on one spreadsheet, then copy and pasting them to another sheet. He was there for quite some period of time, before my curiosity got the better of me, and I asked him what he was doing? Apparently every Friday he had to cross match serial numbers against goods received ready to report on Monday morning, a process that would take him over 5 hours, upon which even he admitted, it wasn’t accurate. Out of sympathy, and with one eye on a potential sales opportunity, I asked if I could jump on his computer and have a look.
After a brief perusal of the data, I wrote a couple of formulas and in around 2 minutes all 1,500 records had the correct serial number associated with each corresponding record. He was a gasp with admiration and the usual “I didn’t know you could do that”. I suggested that he should have a word with his boss, and for a small fee, I could set up some templates and train him on their use. To put that into financial perspective, that would save 5 hours a week of a position worth 25k, which equates to around 4k saving year on year, as compared to my fee of a few hundred quid. Of course the boss said no, partly he didn’t understand the process, and he didn’t want to part with some cash in order to help their business to run more efficiently.
Most business owners I have met still haven’t made the link between increased productivity equals cost savings.
Recently I was running an introduction to excel training course, and a number of participants had particular queries dealing with combining disparate pieces of information and analysing them in one report. They worked in sales and marketing departments and their respective organisations ran separate software for different purposes, but they had to assimilate all the data to make one summary report, again a task that would take several hours. Unfortunately for them that requires some advanced functionality which wasn’t in that particular course, as other people in the group would have been left behind. What it did do was inspire me to run a more advanced course for those people and business owners who are interested in saving time and money by delving into the backend of how excel can manipulate information. As a result, I have worked with those participants to developed an interactive exercise which is based on a real life practical example. The scenario is to combine three feeds, from separate databases, in order to produce a monthly sales report to be presented to management committee. The exercise plus supporting material is included with the package. For more details, email helpdesk@cityglenpubs.co.uk
Please note: The people at Sahara presentation systems will sponsor the event and allowed us to use their showrooms. For anyone attending they would be encouraged to bring their own laptops to make the most of the session (otherwise they just get to listen to me and watch the screen). There is limited availability so it will be on strictly a first come first served basis. Discount are available for group bookings. Email helpdesk@cityglenpubs.co.uk for details.
Malcolm Ford Bio:
Malcolm Ford has had over 10 years’ experience in installing and implementing enterprise level software across the UK. As a part of his role he has developed bespoke excel modelling tools for business including financial forecasts, bank feeds, payroll journals and market research tools. As a result, he is ow in demand to share his experience with business owners in order to make sense of their information in order to make more informed management decisions.