Why Excel is putting your projects at risk
For many strategy and transformation projects, Excel still seems to be the central point of action. Strangely enough, the inefficiencies and dangers it can bring to successful project management are often underestimated. Let's take a look.
"94% of all Excel spreadsheets have errors"Source: brand eins
5 reasons not to use Excel for project management
We love Excel! Excel is able to handle different data types with high flexibility, generate great graphics and is connected to many other software solutions. Even though it was never designed for managing projects, Excel has quietly become the most widely used project management tool. Still, there are some reasons, why Excel is clearly the wrong choice for this.
Excel makes mistakes
About 94% of all Excel spreadsheets have errors. It is not so much a question of whether an Excel sheet has errors, but rather how many errors it contains. These shortcomings can have serious consequences for your strategy and transformation projects.
Falcon is customizable for the user and yet free from complicated and error-prone formulas. Information can be clearly assigned and is automatically processed. No more formulas necessary!
Excel is not secure
Excel saves data in a file-based format. Knowingly or unknowingly, files easy can be manipulated or even completely erased. Excel does not feature systematic controls and manual adjustments are not an option due to the lack of available personnel resources.
Falcon stores all information in a secure database where it remains consistent and unchanged. Accidentally deleted information can be recovered even after days. Better safe than sorry.
Excel easily becomes unmanageable
Complex projects are hardly manageable with Excel. Information has to be gathered and interpreted over and over again. Spreadsheets multiply constantly and dozens of additional calculations and cross-links appear.
In Falcon, all important information comes together in one place. As a result, problems can be identified faster and well-founded decisions can be made more efficiently.
Excel is not multi-user friendly
Many cooks spoil the Excel list. As we all know, files are tend to be send by e-mail, accidentily put in write protection mode or all of a sudden get mysterious formula errors. In addition to that, Excel does not offer flexible user management and differentiated recovery functions.
Falcon allows you to work on projects simultaneously from everywhere. Sensitive project areas can be easily assigned to authorized groups of people with just a few clicks at any time.
Excel is too expensive
Excel seems to be affordable at first glance. However, this is without taking into account the immense costs caused by the inadequacies in project management. Incorrect calculations, lost and inconsistent data, cumbersome searching and interpretation of information - all this costs your team members time and money on a daily basis.
Falcon creates cross-project standards with consistent data. The structure and layout of the display is intuitive and allows quick and clear understanding, which prevents potential (financial) mistakes from occurring in the first place. This enables all team members to work together on the project and boost the company's success.
Leave Excel problems behind and focus on your projects
Frequently asked questions
What is Falcon?
Falcon is a web-based project portfolio management software specialized in transformation and strategy projects. With Falcon you can structure, plan, track and report projects at the push of a button. More about the individual functions can be found here.
Why can't I do this with Excel?
Excel is used far too often to manage strategy and transformation projects. But unfortunately, Excel is utterly unsuitable for those cases due to its error-proneness, lack of clarity and lack of multi-user capability. Find out here what problems Excel causes and why Falcon is the better choice.
Is Falcon difficult?
Falcon is intuitive and can be used directly by software and project novices without problems. We support you in using and understanding Falcon with our integrated support chat, help centre and email support. In addition, we offer an extensive training offer - from free online self-training to super-user training in person at your site.
In which projects is Falcon suitable?
Falcon was explicitly developed for strategy and transformation projects. These can be, for example, growth initiatives, efficiency projects, M&A situations or product, organisation or location changes. In our case studies you can read for which projects our customers use Falcon.
You are in good company
Falcon is the long-awaited and much better alternative to the Excel monsters that used to accompany us on strategy projects.
Falcon is quick to implement and very intuitive to use - exactly what we need for our strategy and transformation projects!
With Falcon, we can transparently track our strategic projects across multiple holding companies without having to version and send large Excel sheets. An intuitive user interface helps with the quick implementation across different company levels!
In transformation projects it is important to concentrate on the essentials. The intuitive operation of Falcon helps to quickly create transparency about many measures and their effects.
Simplicity, short implementation time and the efficient management and communication of our transformation projects make Falcon unbeatable and raise our work to a new level of quality.
Falcon helps keeping an eye on the numerous projects and keeps our transformation structured, whilst promoting transparency in all projects and all areas.
Falcon gives us the opportunity to set up transformation projects pragmatically and professionally right from the start, thus significantly increasing the acceptance of change among our clients.
Falcon enables us to intuitively monitor and control strategic projects together with our clients.
With its project tree, Falcon allows us to easily keep an overview of a large number of improvement measures at the same time. This is complemented by excellent support that leaves nothing to be desired.