The Problem with Excel Spreadsheets in Organizations

The death of Excel has been announced many times but it seems to be tougher than officer McClane and still saves the day for many organizations. However, implementation is riddled with problems and dangers that could have detrimental effect on careers or businesses. I have long developed and fought for standards and procedures to minimize the risks and pains coming from badly placed, designed and developed spreadsheets and I am not alone in that as there are numerous evangelists of good Excel practices. However, their impact is limited and there are larger opposing forces at play. They come from the organizations and the accessibility of Excel itself.

Quantitative Models in Business War Games

Many things look very cool but turn out to be not that exciting when one try using them. Like voice-recognition technology or Communism or electric cars. Quantitative simulation in business war games proudly goes into this list as well. War games in business is simulation of moves and counter-moves by opponents in a commercial setting according to Wikipedia and is a part of the large family of exercises that aim at leveling up the strategies and management methods in modern companies. In a gist, a war game has two or more teams competing for some resources - usually it is a market share, sales or other tangible outcomes. These exercises could be very beneficial for a company. In the general case there is no measure for the impact of a strategy and some thought introducing a suitable quantitative model to deal with that. And it is a good idea. Except it is not as it usually does not work.

From Start up to F**k up - What I Have Learned

I wonder when and why startup businesses became such a big thing. Maybe with the easy access to high tech, available funding and more people got convinced they could develop their own product to kill the market and buy the Hollywood life. However, despite all the books and gurus on the matter, starting a company from scratch is bit more difficult than installing an app on your phone. I am not a doctor but you can trust me on that - year and half ago I co-founded a company and went though the almost full specter of problems and emotions that come with it. The company is focused on retail analytical services and providing BI solution that addresses the specific challenges in that industry. I have recently terminated my tenure there and have the time to reflect and share some of the lessons I took. After all, isn't it a crime if you are in a startup and the world does not know about that?

Some Great Data Science and Big Data Links

The analytical hub of Data Science Central did an extensive research on the liked or mentioned sites and blogs among their member base. The result is a comprehensive list of the best data science sources. Please find the list here.

If you are looking to expand your list of regularly visited blogs check out the similar list of 50 Data Science and Statistics Blogs Worth Reading. There are some true gems.

In case you need some large data to sharpen your skills or for any other purpose go to 20 Big Data Repositories You Should Check Out.

Of course, you can always find some original content and random analytical-related thoughts here.

Used Car Market in Bulgaria - Where is The Data?

Couple of weeks ago I shared some difficulties that come with forecasting the new cars market. This market is interesting for marketers for obvious reasons but it forms the smaller portion of the total car market. The second hand car market got my interest and I looked around for some data. I focused my curiosity on my home country and I would like to put some popular myths against hard data. It turned out that there is virtually no data at all and I had to do some digging for details.

The Winding Roads of Car Sales Forecasting

 Forecasting sales of a car dealer is a tough business, much tougher than predicting the total market. Winning a car race is matter of right combination of engine tuning, tires type and pressure, quality of petrol and the other fluids, the race track parameters, weather conditions, the pilot mental and physical status and many others as well as all these of the competitors. Similarly, sales results depend on plethora of interconnected factors that makes forecasting it Heracles-grade labour. However, the challenges in predicting car sales are not unique and it is a good illustration of some of common problems.

Nice Article About Application of Analytics in Restaurant Business

Restaurants are probably among the most ancient businesses. Analytics steps on the vast experience in the field and adds new insights and creates lot more opportunities. The article Tables, Tablets, Data And Eating published on techcrunch.com/ has some nice examples for that. There are some good points about retail analytics as well. Enjoy!

ModelOff 2014 is Now Opened

The biggest and best Excel challenge is now opened! Professionals and students in Finance, Banking, Accounting, Investments and Quantitative industries who love and use Microsoft Excel could accept the challenge and compete with the best from 100+ countries. The tasks are very challenging but the fun is guaranteed - I have done most of the tasks from the previous competitions and I know for sure. There are three rounds - first two are on-line case studies and the third is on a live event in New Your City. 

Please visit http://www.modeloff.com/  for further details. If you are not going to participate, make sure you review the past questions and learn some new tricks.

VBA or Formulas?

In the process of development complex spreadsheets in Excel there is always the question of the balance of using VBA macros vs. implementation of with formulas. There is no one answer and the choice depends on the target users, complexity of operations and logic, size of the sheet and others. I would like to share some thoughts on this matter.

Transition from Excel to R

The R language is a powerful tool but the learning curve could be very steep and intimidating. However, as a business user you might be looking into it in search of speed, flexibility and better handling of larger data. An Excel user would be thinking in terms of the most common tasks in Excel - summaries, pivots, look-ups, filtering and charting and the first questions about R naturally would be how to perform these tasks. The answers are not always easy to find. Fortunately, there are some good people on the Internet come to help. I have put together a short list of blogs and sites that could be very useful for the initial part of the Excel to R transition.