Shopper marketers love Excel because of its versatility and flexibility. Excel has been around for years and has served us well. However, in the times of increasing complexity and market volatility, it is becoming a crutch we continue to rely on, afraid to let it go.
While Excel is an excellent software for a small business or personal use, it turns into an Achilles heel for the large, modern marketing organizations that fall victims of file version proliferation, manual errors, inability to handle large data loads and standardize processes.
Did you know that 88% of Excel spreadsheets contain manual errors? How confident are you in the decisions you make based on the data you see presented to you in Excel?
How do you know if your Shopper Marketing team has outgrown spreadsheets and is ready to embrace modern shopper marketing technology?
1. It takes you and your team more than 10 minutes to get the program status update.
2. Your team spends more than 2 hours per week "scrubbing" budgets and reconciling invoices.
3. You spend too much time in meetings explaining to people what you did because nobody can decipher, or even locate, your status report.
4. You dread the re-planning exercise because it means you will stay up until 2 am.
5. You can't remember which version of the budget forecast file is the one you need "Final-Final" or "Final_V13."
6. You say a prayer "Please don't crash" every time a large file is starting to open.
7. The team regularly finds itself in an "e-mail jail" because enormous files clog their in-boxes.
8. You suspect that the ROI formula is messed up, but you are afraid to touch it because you don't know who came up with the template and how it works.
9. You had to upgrade the diopters on your eyeglasses because you've been staring at columns and rows way too long.
10. You have a "meta-tracker" (a tracker for tracking trackers).
If you and your team recognize any of these signs, it may be time to begin a search for a more sustainable solution. Download our "Agile Shopper Marketing" eBook to get ideas for how to start this exciting journey.
