I’m encouraged by the fact that some organizations I speak to are trying to get their spreadsheet sprawl under control. However, far too many remain ignorant of the risks they are shouldering.
Stratford Dick of Marsh ClearSight recently published an article describing how spreadsheets might be hurting your company. In his article he highlights the following risks.
- Spreadsheet development is time consuming
- It’s ridiculously easy to make typos
- Formatting inconsistencies can lead to misinterpretation of results
- As spreadsheets are mostly developed by individuals they’re not subject to formal checks and reviews
- Spreadsheets are rarely subject to version control—and are not really designed to be
- There is no enterprise-level security when using spreadsheets
- It can be time-consuming to extract and collate data from different spreadsheet models
