Excel Spreadsheet Use and the Strategic Corporate Plan :: essays papers

Excel Spreadsheet Use and the Strategic Corporate curriculumIntroductionIn years past, every well-run corporation undoubtedly had a written military control plan. Oftentimes, these plans were considered by many to be anexercise in frustration, as they were laboriously considered, written,then stored on the companys depository library shelf until the next business preparedness cycle. The last few decades have befooln a radical change in theway companies do their planning. More practically than not, the oldbusiness plan - though still produced and of value in its own right -is given less attention than the newer Strategic Plan. Unlike the fear Plan, which tends to be a very short document, the StrategicPlan is likely to be much more substantial and detailed. The BusinessPlan provides the foundation and exemplar for the Strategic Plan.1Senior business managers are often so occupied with immediate issuesthat they can easily lose site of the long-term objectives of thebusiness - o bjectives upon which the business can thrive if attained orfail completely if not. Because of this, a Strategic Plan today is avirtual necessity. Most managers tend to see the Strategic Plan as aliving document one that, with careful foresight, consideration anddevelopment is written at the start of a business planning period, thenreworked as circumstances within the company and business climatechange throughout the planning period.2 The writing and preparation ofa Strategic Plan is an important effort, demonstrating that carefulconsideration has been given to the businesss development however,the ultimate goal of the Strategic Plan is its own realization. Withthe advent of the personal computer and spreadsheet development, theStrategic supplying process today is made easier with the many currentspreadsheet programs available to aid in the Plan A Short History ofthe Spreadsheet.The term spread sheet (nowadays spreadsheet) has along history, beginning with the non-computerizedver sion, a reference to which was made in accountingbooks from the early 1950s to describe a worksheetproviding a two-way analysis of accounting data (i.e.an accounting matrix in which the columns and rowsconstitute either debit and credit sides)3 In thinkingabout the history of the spreadsheet, two important men booth out. In the early 1960s, Richard Mattessich ofthe University of California at Berkeley pioneeredcomputerized spread sheets for business accounting. Asthe forerunners of todays spreadsheet programs forPCs such as Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, etc., these spreadsheets contained use of matrices, (budget) simulation,and, most important, the calculation to have eachmatrix cell.4 Although Mattessichs work wasmentioned in economic and computer literature as well