Excel Galore
Hi everyone,
I have told you about some nuances that have occurred to me during my time at puma but the essence of my job title, merchandise analyst intern, implies that I am engaged in analytics. Learning the ins and outs of excel, as exciting and fun as it may sound, has been my biggest learning experience at PUMA. What seems to be a pretty self-explanatory and easy to use application, as I have learned, is one of the most widely used tools in today’s business environment. With its many tricks and functions, excel can be applied and utilized in countless ways.
I have been exposed to several options of excel earlier, in my QTM2421 course with Professor Erikson, where we discovered how these tools function. Witnessing the application and significance of excel on PUMA databases, however, was the best case study to learn from. From day one, I was stacking Key Account plans for various clients. While stacking these files was an easy task, the end product was utilized by senior merchandise analysts in both the Boston and Westford offices. It is always rewarding to see the work you do, be valued by upper management. Through working with these KA plans, I became well acquainted with the most popular excel functions: vlookup, sumif and pivot tables. For someone who appreciates numbers, it was amazing to see how there is an infinite number of ways to present information; a pivot table alone can be manipulated to allow different people come to entirely different conclusions about the same set of data.
My most recent excel related project is an ongoing troubleshooting process that ensures that the database has accuracy and allows for the numbers on the “roll up”, to essentially, roll up. In some cases that means rewriting formulas that cross reference sheets. In other cases, that means mining the data to determine the root of the discrepancies. Since this is an ongoing process, I have become much more familiar with the database and now can anticipate what changes need to be made in order to ensure accurate roll up. I know this might sound boring to you, but it feels great when you are responsible for simply, making something work!
Let me know if you ever have questions on excel! Hopefully I can help 🙂
Thanks for reading,
Michelle Tuzman