Wayne L. Winston - Microsoft Excel 2010: Data analysis and business modeling

Copyright 2011

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934987

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Whether you work for a Fortune 500 corporation, a small company, a government agency, or a not-for-profit organization, if youre reading this introduction the chances are you use Microsoft Excel in your daily work. Your job probably involves summarizing, reporting, and analyzing data. It might also involve building analytic models to help your employer increase profits, reduce costs, or manage operations more efficiently.

Since 1999, Ive taught thousands of analysts at organizations such as 3M, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cisco Systems, Drugstore.com, eBay, Eli Lilly, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Intel, Microsoft, NCR, Owens Corning, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, Tellabs, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Defense, and Verizon how to use Excel more efficiently and productively in their jobs. Students have often told me that the tools and methods I teach in my classes have saved them hours of time each week and provided them with new and improved approaches for analyzing important business problems. Most of these classes used Excel 2003 or Excel 2007. With the added power of Excel 2010, you can be more productive than you ever dreamed! To paraphrase Alicia Silverstone in the movie Clueless , Excel 2007 is so five years ago.

Ive used the techniques described in this book in my own consulting practice to solve many business problems. For example, I use Excel to help the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team evaluate referees, players, and lineups. During the last 15 years I have also taught Excel business modeling and data analysis classes to MBA students at Indiana Universitys Kelley School of Business. (As proof of my teaching excellence, I have won MBA teaching awards for 25 consecutive years, and have won the schools overall MBA teaching award five times.) I would like to also note that 95 percent of MBA students at Indiana University take my spreadsheet modeling class even though it is an elective.

The book you have in your hands is an attempt to make these successful classes available to everyone. Here is why I think the book will help you learn how to use Excel more effectively: