Beyond What-If: How to Build Analytic and Decision Models in Spreadsheets
Speaker(s):
Daniel Fylstra
Duration: 120 minutes
Track: Analyze & Interpret
Countless ads and articles from software vendors claim that you need to “outgrow the spreadsheet” and learn a whole new platform and language (theirs) in order to build analytic models and solve decision problems. Yet virtually all these tools feature “Excel import/export” buttons, and meanwhile tons of users have built analytic and decision models directly in Excel, often getting big payoffs. So, can you do it? Sure you can, but it requires a somewhat different way of thinking about your spreadsheet model, and more than simple calculation. In this hands-on session, you will do it! We’ll walk you through creation of Solver models for optimization, Monte Carlo simulation models for risk analysis, decision analysis models and more in Excel 2013, running on supplied PCs at your lab room seat. Analytic decision models are very often based on the summarized data we get from business intelligence tools – so we’ll use Power Pivot and Power Query to retrieve, summarize and deliver the data we need for our Excel-based analytic models.