Excel Spreadsheet Use and the Strategic Corporate Plan

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Excel Spreadsheet Use and the Strategic Corporate Plan

Introduction

In years past, every well-run corporation undoubtedly had a written

business plan. Oftentimes, these plans were considered by many to be an

exercise in frustration, as they were laboriously considered, written,

then stored on the company's library shelf until the next business

planning cycle. The last few decades have seen a radical change in the

way companies do their planning. More often than not, the "old"

business plan - though still produced and of value in its own right -

is given less attention than the newer Strategic Plan. Unlike the

Business Plan, which tends to be a very short document, the Strategic

Plan is likely to be much more substantial and detailed. The Business

Plan provides the foundation and framework for the Strategic Plan.1

Senior business managers are often so occupied with immediate issues

that they can easily lose site of the long-term objectives of the

business - objectives upon which the business can thrive if attained or

fail completely if not. Because of this, a Strategic Plan today is a

virtual necessity. Most managers tend to see the Strategic Plan as a

'living' document; one that, with careful foresight, consideration and

development is written at the start of a business planning period, then

reworked as circumstances within the company and business climate

change throughout the planning period.2 The writing and preparation of

a Strategic Plan is an important effort, demonstrating that careful

consideration has been given to the business's development; however,

the ultimate goal of the Strategic Plan is its own realization. With

the advent of the personal computer and spreadsheet development, the

Strategic Planning process today is made easier with the many current

spreadsheet programs available to aid in the Plan' A Short History of

the Spreadsheet.

The term "spread sheet" (nowadays "spreadsheet) has a

long history, beginning with the non-computerized

version, a reference to which was made in accounting

books from the early 1950's to describe a worksheet

providing a two-way analysis of accounting data (i.e.

an accounting matrix in which the columns and rows

constitute either debit and credit sides)3 In thinking

about the history of the spreadsheet, two important men

stand out. In the early 1960s, Richard Mattessich of

the University of California at Berkeley pioneered

computerized spread sheets for business accounting. As

the forerunners of today's spreadsheet programs for

PC's such as Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, etc., these spread

sheets contained use of matrices, (budget) simulation,

and, most important, the calculation to support each

matrix cell."4 Although Mattessich's work was

mentioned in economic and computer literature as well

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