Course Introduction

Microsoft Excel is a powerful platform for analysing business data and supporting business decisions.

This 1-day practical course is designed to help business executives use Excel to support real-world business decision-making. Participants will learn how to analyse business information, evaluate alternatives, identify trends, assess performance, manage budgets, and make informed decisions using practical Excel techniques.

The focus is on practical decision-making rather than technical or accounting theory. Through realistic business scenarios and hands-on activities, participants will build simple, useful Excel models, analyses and reports that can be applied immediately in their day-to-day work.

This course uses features available in Excel 2016 and later.

Windows version of Excel is required.

The trainer will demonstrate all exercises using Microsoft 365.

Who Should Attend

This course is suitable for business executives, managers and professionals who use Excel to analyse information, monitor performance and support business decisions, including:

• Executives and managers from all business functions
• Sales and marketing executives
• Operations and production executives
• HR and administration professionals
• Procurement and purchasing personnel.
• Business analysts and planning executives
• Finance and accounting professionals are also welcome to attend

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Use Excel to analyse business information and support decisions.
• Apply logical and lookup functions to solve business problems.
• Perform break-even, profitability and budgeting analysis.
• Use PivotTables and Pivot Charts to analyse business performance.
• Apply Excel tools to evaluate scenarios and identify key business insights.

Course Benefits

Participants will be able to:

• Make faster, data-driven business decisions.
• Analyse and interpret business data more effectively.
• Identify trends, variances and areas requiring attention.
• Improve budgeting, planning and performance monitoring.
• Build practical Excel analyses that can be applied immediately at work.

Prerequisite

• Basic Excel knowledge (simple formulas and basic navigation)

COURSE OUTLINE

Module 1: Logical Functions for Business Decisions

Topics

• Understanding logical functions in business analysis
• IF function for decision-making
• IFS for multiple conditions
• Combining IF with AND / OR
• Creating business rules and decision criteria
• Using logical functions to classify and flag business information.
• Examples:
  • Approve / reject decisions.
  • Sales performance evaluation

Activities

• Create business logic with IF.
• Use SUMIFS/ COUNTIFS for multiple criteria.
• Test multiple conditions.

Module 2: Lookup Functions for Business Analysis

Topics

• Why lookup functions are important for decision-making.
• Understanding lookup concepts
• INDEX & MATCH
• VLOOKUP and when it is still useful.
• XLOOKUP
• Retrieving information based on for example:
  • Customer
  • Product
  • Employee
  • Department
  • Invoice number
• Using LOOKUPS to retrieve multiple pieces of information
• Combining lookup functions with logical functions

Activities

• Look up different types of data.
• Use INDEX & MATCH
• Lookup staff list

Module 3: Break-Even & Profitability Decisions

Topics

• Fixed costs and variable costs
• Contribution and contribution margin
• Break-even point
• Break-even sales value.
• Target profit
• Margin of safety
• Impact of changes in:
  • Selling price
  • Variable cost
  • Fixed cost
  • Sales volume
• What-if analysis
• Activities
• Build a pricing and profit model
  ✔ Calculate break-even point
  ✔ Determine sales required for target profit
  ✔ Change assumptions and analyse the impact.

Module 4: Budgeting & Variance Analysis

Topics

• Using Excel for practical budgeting
• Sales budget.
• Expense budget
• Simple cash budget
• Budget versus actual analysis
• Calculating:
  • Variance
  • Variance %
  • Favourable / unfavourable variance
• Identifying significant variances
• Using IF to flag areas requiring management attention

Activity: Budget vs Actual – Management Review

Participants receive a departmental budget containing:

• Sales
• Payroll
• Marketing
• Utilities
• Administration
• Other operating expenses

They will:

1. Calculate the variance.
2. Calculate variance %.
3. Classify variances as favourable or unfavourable.
4. Use IF to flag significant variances.
5. Identify the areas requiring attention.

Module 5: PivotTables for Management Decision-Making

Topics

• Creating PivotTables
• Pivot fields: Rows, Columns, Values, Filters
• Grouping data
• Filtering & slicing
• Pivot Charts
• Making PivotTables dynamic
• Calculated fields
• Adding new data when received and updating results.

Sales Analysis Example

• Total revenue by store
• Revenue per customer
• Highest customer visits
• Monthly sales trends
• Identify high and low-performing areas.
• Slicers
• Adding new data
• Calculated fields

HR Example

• Salary by Departments/Location
• Average Salary
• Gender breakdown
• Years of Service
• Employee Ratings & Ratings Score

Activities

• Build a PivotTable from scratch.
• Summarize business data.
• Create Pivot Charts and apply slicers.