The Importance of Excel in Data Science
Tags: excel, importanceofexcel, datascience
Published: 2022-03-10 06:32:07

Microsoft Excel is hated by the majority of "data scientists." It's slow and clumsy, can only handle a million rows of data (and will most likely kill your machine if you go too close), and is tough to write for repeated tasks, despite Visual Basic's best efforts.

Some data scientists may consider Excel to be "too basic" for them to use. I had heard that using Excel for modelling could get you fired at one of the firms where I worked, but I'm happy to report that I broke this rule with few repercussions. Nonetheless, based on my experience as a "data science" and analytics consultant and the completion of several modelling projects, I believe Excel will continue to be an important tool in a data scientist's toolbox. This is due to a variety of reasons.

The most crucial aspect is communication. Excel is a popular programme among "business people," who use it for nearly every formal work (I know of people who write documents in Excel). You'll almost definitely discover a bunch of numbers in an Excel sheet if you need them. I'm aware of a number of major corporations who use Excel to store and distribute data (admittedly poor usage). Excel may be used by even non-quantitative business types to perform simple quantitative operations such as joining (VLookup), pivoting, basic data cleansing (TRIM, VALUE, etc. ), averaging, visualisation, and even basic statistics such as correlation and regression.

Excel looks to be an essential number-crunching tool that is primarily used to keep track of household finances and generate simple reports. Excel, on the other hand, is much more than a spreadsheet. Excel is a powerful piece of software that can be used for a wide range of personal and business purposes. As a result, MS Excel has a wealth of applications, and the list goes on, and if you're having trouble with Excel formulae or need [excel assignment help](https://www.calltutors.com/Articles/Excel-Assignment-Help), you may reach out to Excel specialists.

## Entry and storage of data

When it comes to simple data entry and storage, Excel is an amazing programme. Excel is a fantastic programme for storing vast amounts of information. However, the size of the excel file is limited by the computer's capabilities and available memory. Excel worksheets can have 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns in a table style. Once the data in an excel file has been organised, we can use it for a variety of purposes. We can use a range of tools and formulae to conduct various operations on the data.

## Accounting and Finance

Financial services and financial accounting are the two fields of finance that rely on and benefit the most from Excel spreadsheets. Financial analysts would spend weeks manually or (beginning in 1983) on technologies like Lotus 1-2-3 conducting intricate computations in the 1970s and early 1980s. Excel now allows you to perform complex modelling in a matter of minutes.

If you step into the finance or accounting department of any major firm, you'll see Excel spreadsheets crunching numbers, summarising financial results, and producing budgets, predictions, and plans that are used to make critical business decisions.