Excel Spreadsheets Are Dead for Big Data. Firms Need More Python As an alternative.

Opinion

Data is getting too complicated for Excel to maintain up

Spreadsheets are bogging us down. For all of the reliance on Excel in the company world, clinging to it’s like attempting to run a Formula 1 race in a broken-down automobile. Sure, it’s familiar and widespread. And, to be fair, it does work for a lot of tasks starting from easy data extraction in investment banking to fairly complex insurance pricing models.

Nevertheless, in the case of data with 1000’s of entries, often interrelated tables and sophisticated clusters, using Excel can get downright dangerous in the case of managing today’s complex data. Take this: Excel’s row limit is infamous, resulting in high-profile disasters just like the UK’s COVID-19 data mishap, where 1000’s of test results were missed attributable to Excel’s constraints.

Or consider the untold hours wasted double-checking manual entries, only to find yourself with reports that may still fall victim to human error. The reality is that Excel is dead weight when you find yourself coping with data evaluation from a certain level of complexity onwards.

In an age where even easy consumer apps handle complex data faster and with more precision, why are we still coping with the…