Analyzing Business Data with Excel

Product Description

As one of the most widely used desktop applications ever created, Excel is familiar to just about everyone with a computer and a keyboard. Yet most of us don't know the full extent of what Excel can do, mostly because of its recent growth in power, versatility, and complexity. The truth is that there are many ways Excel can help make your job easier-beyond calculating sums and averages in a standard spreadsheet.

Analyzing Business Data with Excel shows you how to solve real-world business problems by taking Excel's data analysis features to the max. Rather than focusing on individual Excel functions and features, the book keys directly on the needs of business users. Most of the chapters start with a business problem or question, and then show you how to create pointed spreadsheets that address common data analysis issues.

Aimed primarily at experienced Excel users, the book doesn't spend much time on the basics. After introducing some necessary general tools, it quickly moves into more specific problem areas, such as the following:

* Statistics
* Pivot tables
* Workload forecasting
* Modeling
* Measuring quality
* Monitoring complex systems
* Queuing
* Optimizing
* Importing data

If you feel as though you're getting shortchanged by your overall application of Excel, Analyzing Business Data with Excel is just the antidote. It addresses the growing Excel data analysis market head on. Accountants, managers, analysts, engineers, and supervisors-one and all-will learn how to turn Excel functionality into actual solutions for the business problems that confront them.

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #408013 in Books
* Published on: 2006-01-03
* Format: Illustrated
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 262 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Gerald Knight has nearly 30 years experience in the computer industry as a developer, teacher, and consultant. During an over twenty-year career at FedEx, he was a project leader and system architect working on imaging and revenue control systems. He has specialized in Excel development for the last ten years. Now retired, he consults and occasionally writes in Memphis, Tennessee.
Customer Reviews

Very Disappointed.1
We bought this book back in mid January 2006.
It's been a year since the published date on
January 1, 2006, where are ALL the EXCEL data?

The XL_Applications.zip posted on 28-Aug-2006
on O'Reilly website consists of about 1/3 of
ALL the data/examples in the book.

The book has 12 chapters; however, not a single
chapter is provided with complete EXCEL data/
examples. What XL_Applications.zip contains
are some selected data/examples from chapter 3
to 8. Again, NOT a single chapter is provided
with ALL the EXCEL data/examples used in that
chapter.

I won't recommend this book until O'Reilly takes
"actions" to provide the readers with ALL the
EXCEL data/examples used in this book.

For reading a data analysis book w/o ALL the
data/examples to run it ourselves in EXCEL is
NOT useful at all.

You may wonder, how about type those data in?
No way, because most (if not all) of the data/
examples are very long and can only be shown
"partially" in the figures/screen shots!

Great Book, but where's the data?4
Overall this is a good book, but it would be much nicer if they provided Excel worksheets with the data used in the book's examples. Some sample code is provided for dowload on Oreilly's website, but this does not include example data. Nonetheless, the book is worth looking at.

VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!5
Are you an experienced Excel user? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Gerald Knight, has done an outstanding job of writing a practical guide that shows you how to solve real-world business problems by taking Excel's data analysis features to the max.

Knight, begins by covering averages, trends, correlation, distributions and array formulas. Then, the author examines pivot table basics and ways to modify data to make it work better with pivot tables. Next, he covers the application development process, worksheet organization, and forecasting techniques. The author continues by exploring regression, problem definition, analysis, model construction, and interpretation of results. He also works with statistical process control, X and Y charts, and application design. Knight, then examines data requirements, statistical techniques and logic, application design, and organization. Then, he shows you how to apply formatting, VBA, and logic in an application that measures worker performance in a queuing operation. The author continues the discussion of queuing with another application by focusing on the status of the queue. He also explains how to use Goal Seek and Solver for various kinds of problems. Knight next covers importing from text files, databases, and XML. Then, he examines common problems with dates, numeric information, dealing with data in report form, and equivalence problems. Finally, he covers display design, color combination, dealing with complexity, and visual consideration.

This most excellent book keys directly on the needs of business users. More importantly, this book addresses the growing Excel data analysis market head-on.