Does it worth spending time learning Excel Charts & Dashboards ?

[@Kumar157@]

Hi Members,
Yesterday I have received a profile with Excel skills such as Excel Charts, Dashboards and VBA working for just Rs. 350,000 salary in an insurance company in India who has over 7 yrs exp.

But the people with proficiency in tools like Tableau, Cognos, Microstrategy etc are earning much higher than those with very good excel skills. This is my personal observation. Here the fun part is Even though the tools has much more statistical analysis capabilities, they are using these tools for visualizations, But getting higher pays.

I failed to convince my HR to consider the profile even though the profile has positive points like, Excellent communication skills, womam employee and good analytical skills.

Please correct if my observation is wrong. In this era, Is it worth spending time & money to learn Excel charts, Dashboards and Power Pivot and VBA programming etc. Please share your views.

 

[Asheesh]

Excel is a widely used tool and is used in most of the organizations around the globe..In my opinion, I dont say one application is better than other..every application has its pros and cons..but if you notice, any organization using Tableau, congnos, Microstrategy, SAS, r, hadoop etc still uses MS Excel...it has its own importance...

I think it is good to have skill in some cases and in cases like MIS..it is mandatory...but again, varies from role to role..

 

[NARAYANK991]

Hi ,

My opinion is that Excel mastery alone is unlikely to get anyone a wonderful job.

I doubt that any company can afford to have a full-time employee who is good only in Excel. A proficiency in Excel is always to be accompanied by domain knowledge ; thus if you are a finance professional / an actuary / a statistician who is good in Excel , you stand a better chance of getting a highly paid job than if you are good only in Excel.

Secondly , if you talk of Power Pivot , certainly a proficiency in Power Pivot along with a proficiency in Excel is far better than a proficiency in Excel alone , since nowadays with data analysis in demand , Excel is unlikely to be able to handle the volume of data and the kind of analysis that Power Pivot offers.

Narayan

 

[Sudhir Prabhu]

Agree with the posts from Asheesh and Narayan. Excel is a powerful tool - yet simple enough for even a lay-person across all walks for their consumption. Like any other tool, ability to leverage this in your respective domain is important to view this as a job-aid.

A mason can buy all kinds of tools - and probably even learn how to use it with hit and trial; but unless the person is a really good mason, the tools stand no chance!

Besides, it all adds to what is it that an organisation is looking for ? Cognos works for reporting and data base area and has its overheads (certainly can't compare its procurement cost ) From my experience, I know many an organisations' key units in Finance and Project / Program Management Office depend heavily on Excel skills - and if you notice, the core domain is not excel !

I am sure your experience, sad as it is, is isolated case.

Reg
Sudhir