New inventions and progress in technology hit our shelves almost daily. Discontinuous inventions are defined as those that allow us to replace an old way of doing something with something brand new. A successful discontinuous invention usually leads to a paradigm shift, a watershed moment in the history of an industry, or sometimes the history of man.
Consider the introduction of the motorcar, replacing horseback or the impact of the aeroplane on global travel, or the Internet on communication.
Because we cannot foresee inventions and therefore new paradigms, we continue going about achieving our goals with the tools we have at hand. In many cases however, the method we successfully adopt to complete tasks, is fuelling the motivation of some inventor. If a method is tainted with flaws and is unproductive, our world will quickly replace it with an improvement. The challenge facing any new discontinuous invention, however, is that people already have a method and have come to accept or tolerate the inefficiency associated with it.
One very good example of the tolerance of an inefficient practice, has mushroomed along side one of the most successful software stories of all time, Microsoft Excel. Almost every desktop user has access to Excel and no other company can claim that an entire first world has so much skill in running their software.
Excel was designed as a spreadsheet application. The idea was to provide desktop users with a means to create sophisticated models where the input of numbers would result in the answers to important questions. Because of the power of Excel the world began using it to report on a company`s existing databases, the most common example being accounting databases.
Herein lies the start of one of the world`s most unproductive activities of all time. Across the globe millions of desktop users manually cut and paste data into Excel every day. Then, a process of formatting finally results in a report that is used to make a decision or satisfy the queries of some manager. When this report is needed the next time, the same process takes place from scratch. In some environments the success of this methodology has been sufficient to go one step further, where attempts are made to connect automatically to the data using Microsoft`s ODBC connection.
Brad Bartlett, CEO of Alchemex Reporting Solutions explains that "Companies deem the information crucial and the net result is that key staff often spend as much as five full days a month doing manual Excel reporting". In the past, tolerating this spend on manual Excel work was justifiable but now a wealth of "Excel integration middleware" challenges the old paradigm. Companies are now suffering daily Excel loss only because of there is always a lag in educating the world that a new paradigm has arrived. Bartlett explains "Within our client base, the converted cannot believe they subjected themselves to so many years of manual Excel wastage". He argues that, "Decision makers should make a point of investigating these solutions because the productivity gains achievable are material to the bottom line". Proponents of Excel Integration software estimate that millions of capitalist dollars find there way to the sewers every day because of repetitive Excel usage that could be automated, very cost effectively.
Alchemex - Excel based reporting solution
Alchemex is a generic Excel integration and report writing solution. As a reporting solution Alchemex is positioned as a cost effective addition to the armoury of any report writing department. Over and above traditional deployment choices available, the company can now also write the report with the final output in delivered in Excel. Productivity gains are also a consideration and often the IT team can empower the end user to write reports themselves, due to the existing Excel skill levels already prevalent in companies.
Alchemex have focused on end user reporting solutions for financial managers. Alchemex now offers applications for ACCPAC, Syspro, Pastel and Pastel Evolution.
The proposition for any financial manager implementing Alchemex is to achieve the automation of Excel reports that have traditionally taken days to prepare, every month. Template solutions include the management pack, sales master, stock master and purchases reporting.
The management pack is usually the initial consideration, and provides the management team with one Excel workbook containing all the schedules feeding off the data repository. The recent launch of the drill down feature is proving very popular, and allows the user to drill down to the detailed ledger from the balance on the income statement.
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