Excel works ... until it doesn't anymore
Interview with Denise Lelle, Business Development, OPTANO GmbH
Excel has become an integral part of many companies' day-to-day work. Over the years, it has become the central tool for planning, analysis and decision support. It is flexible, available and taken for granted by many.
Denise Lelle is Business Development Manager at OPTANO and deals daily with the question of how companies can structure complex planning and decision-making processes better and make them more informed.
At the same time, the demands on planning have changed fundamentally. Markets have become more dynamic, interrelationships more complex and decisions more interconnected. What used to be considered in isolation must now be understood in an overall context.
This raises a crucial question: when does a tool that has worked well for a long time become a limiting factor itself? In this interview, we talk to her about why Excel reaches its structural limits in many cases, how companies recognize this and what it means to rethink planning.
Excel is deeply embedded in the planning processes of many companies. What makes it so difficult to break away from it?
Excel is so deeply rooted primarily because it is extremely accessible. Most people come into contact with it at an early age - at school, university or during training. It is available everywhere, ready to use immediately and works without any major IT dependency. This is a huge advantage, especially in specialist areas. You can get started quickly, build your own solutions and work independently.
Over the years, highly individualized systems have emerged from this. Many of these Excel solutions contain an impressive amount of experience, logic and detailed knowledge. And that is precisely what makes it so difficult to let go. Because as long as something feels like it works, there is no acute pressure to change, even if objectively there have long been better ways.
You just spoke of „felt to work“. What exactly do you mean by that?
A plan that looks plausible is not automatically a good plan. This is precisely the problem. Excel delivers results, but it does not provide any certainty as to whether they are really optimal. In complex systems, there are almost always better alternatives that simply remain invisible in the existing approach.
„Excel works, but not for the reality of today.“
Excel is so popular precisely because of its flexibility. Is this flexibility enough when planning requirements increase?
Accessibility and flexibility are Excel's greatest strengths. In the beginning, they help to quickly build solutions and map different requirements. But as complexity increases, it is no longer enough to simply represent things. It becomes crucial to understand interrelationships and systematically derive decisions.
A simple image: you can also complete a triathlon with normal sneakers and an old bike. You might even make it to the finish line ... but it's highly unlikely that you'll achieve a best time.
It's the same with planning. With every additional variable and every new dependency, it becomes more difficult to maintain an overview. Flexibility remains, but it is no substitute for structure. And it is precisely at this point that it becomes clear: Excel can do a lot, but is not made for complex planning problems.
The planning environment has changed significantly in recent years, particularly in sectors such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals. What do you think are the most important drivers for this?
I would say the biggest difference is that planning today has become much more dynamic. In the past, many processes were more stable and predictable. Today, we have more uncertainties in the market, greater cost pressure and at the same time a much higher dynamic in demand. In addition, complexity is increasing overall. Portfolios are becoming broader, networks are changing and there is significantly more data available than before. On the one hand, this is an opportunity, but it also makes planning more challenging.
Of course, regulation also plays a role in these industries, precisely because it restricts flexibility. For example, you can't simply move a product to another location.
But in my view, it is not the real driver for the challenges we see today. What has really changed is the demand on planning. It is no longer enough to create a stable plan. Today, companies have to compare scenarios, better assess risks and recognize potential.
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Many planning decisions are closely linked - capacities, materials, costs. Why does this become a problem so quickly in Excel?
Planning systems are highly interconnected. A single decision affects many other areas at the same time. For example, if a production quantity changes, this affects capacities, raw material requirements, campaign planning and costs at the same time. If a raw material is missing, this has an impact on several plants, products and customers at the same time.
These interactions happen in parallel. However, Excel forces us into a linear logic. Interrelationships are mapped step by step - and this is precisely why crucial interactions are lost.
This leads to decisions being made in isolation. The consequences often only become apparent later. The end result is local optimization, but not an optimized overall system. In terms of a company's efficiency, this can make a big difference.
„The real problem is not Excel, but how we make decisions.“
Many experts have developed a very keen sense of their processes and planning over the years - that's a real asset. What happens when this implicit knowledge is suddenly transferred into a model? Will planners end up making themselves superfluous?
In practice, the exact opposite is happening. Many experts today are heavily burdened with operational tasks. A large part of their time is spent on data preparation and model maintenance. A solution that relieves the burden here creates one thing above all: freedom.
Existing knowledge is not lost in the process, it is structured and made scalable. Experience is actively incorporated into models and thus becomes usable for the entire company.
At the same time, the role of planners is changing. Less manual calculation, more evaluation, control and strategic classification. The system merely provides mathematically sound decision support. Planners become decision architects. And this is precisely where the real added value lies.
Is there such a thing as a typical moment when companies realize: We can't get any further with Excel?
In my experience, this typical „aha moment“ is rare, but there are clear signals. A typical sign is when results are no longer plausible or comprehensible. Or when there is uncertainty as to whether the underlying data is correct at all. The large number of reconciliation loops is also an indicator. If more time is spent discussing figures than making decisions, something is fundamentally wrong.
Sometimes it can also be felt in practice: models suddenly work slowly or become unstable. These are all small indicators, but at the latest when different scenarios are evaluated and different constraints are to be incorporated into the model, it becomes clear that this approach no longer scales.
„Complexity cannot be modeled away - only understood better.“
If Excel reaches these limits, what makes an optimization-based approach like OPTANO's fundamentally different?
The key difference is that decisions are no longer made in isolation, but in the overall system. An optimization-based approach considers capacities, materials, costs and restrictions simultaneously. Conflicting objectives are no longer weighed up manually, but systematically resolved.
This changes the quality of the decisions. Instead of approximations, reliable, transparent solutions are created that take the overall system into account. This is particularly relevant for choice-if scenarios. Different options can be quickly compared in terms of their impact on the entire system. This not only makes planning more efficient, but above all much more sound.
So has Excel had its day in planning - or will it continue to play a role?
Excel is not going to disappear and it doesn't have to. It is a good tool for many tasks: Data preparation, smaller analyses or as a supporting front end.
The crucial question is not whether Excel is used, but what it is used for. As soon as complex, dynamic and networked planning tasks are involved, Excel reaches its clear limits. Then you need solutions that have been developed precisely for these requirements.
In the future, Excel will therefore play a supporting role, but should no longer be the central tool for planning. Solutions are then needed that have been developed precisely for this purpose and take into account the interrelationships in the overall system.
Thank you for the interview and your perspective on how planning needs to change in an increasingly complex world.