“Excel Made me Do it!” A Corporate America horror Story.

Any similarity with real life office situations is marely coincidental.

I have always had a saying: "All IT projects in the industry have one ultimate goal - to rid ourselves of Excel." Yet, despite our best efforts, especially in the realm of Business Intelligence (BI), users often bypass our meticulously crafted Tableau/Power BI/QLink solutions and opt to export data to Excel, constructing their own mini data empires powered by sophisticated VLOOKUPs.

As the "Compliance Hunting Season" unfolds, the swap squad is working overtime to defuse potential Excel bombs that could jeopardize business continuity or worse, attract hefty fines. It's all in the name of compliance.

What's particularly ironic is that one of the departments notorious for generating these Excel marvels is "Regulatory Reporting" itself. How could this be? Weren't they meant to battle the enemy, not join forces?

Consider this scenario: a new cryptic regulation surfaces, demanding Legal and Business decipher its requirements. Then, the assessment kicks off to identify gaps in our supposedly state-of-the-art reporting platform. Tick-tock—time is not on our side.

By the time we decode the regulation and conduct a gap analysis, we face a brick wall: no tech resources, no budget, and zero business appetite to comply. As the requirement owner, you scramble to map data sources, engage with data owners, and define samples.

Before the project stalls, other chaos ensues. The legal team, overwhelmed by the labyrinthine regulations, struggles to decipher ambiguous clauses. Meanwhile, business stakeholders demand immediate clarity on compliance strategies, oblivious to the complexities involved. Budget constraints tighten like a vise, squeezing resources needed for vital tech upgrades. The ticking clock echoes like a relentless drumbeat, each passing moment amplifying the urgency to bridge compliance gaps. Amidst this chaos, you navigate a maze of red tape and conflicting priorities, racing against time to salvage the project.

Simultaneously, while the project stalls with delays, you take matters into your own hands. Armed with the raw data, late nights become a blur of creative problem-solving. As the clock ticks, you piece together a makeshift solution, weaving disparate data strands into a functional tapestry, guided by your ingenuity and a touch of desperation.

Six months later, the men in black appear at your desk, their stern faces betraying no hint of leniency. They've unearthed your unauthorized workaround, exposing your makeshift solution crafted under duress. Your heart sinks as you realize the implications of your impromptu data wizardry—they're not here for accolades. "Excel made me do it," you mutter under your breath, a feeble attempt to diffuse the tension.

In that moment, as you face the consequences of your makeshift compliance solution, a realization dawns upon you. There must be a better way—a platform that marries compliance with flexibility, empowering Excel-savvy professionals without compromising regulatory integrity. Stay tuned for the solution in my next delivery, where I unveil how you can harness existing corporate tools to conquer compliance challenges and bid farewell to Excel-induced predicaments once and for all.