1. BUSINESS ANALYSIS
The #1 use for Microsoft Excel in the workplace is to do business analysis. Business analysis is essentially using collected data to inform decision-making. Businesses naturally gather data in their day-to-day activities, which may be data on product sales, website traffic, spending on supplies, insurance claims, etc.

2. PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
MS Excel is a powerful way to organise information about people, whether they are employees, customers, supporters, or training attendees. Using Excel, personal data can be stored and retrieved efficiently. A spreadsheet row or column can be used for an individual record, including name, email address, employee start date, items purchased, subscription status, and last contact.

3. MANAGING OPERATIONS
While Amazon uses sophisticated custom software for operations management, MS Excel is an essential tool for many smaller businesses (or parts of larger companies). An advantage of Excel is that it’s relatively low-tech, allowing it to be used by many people without the risk of programming bugs.

4. PERFORMANCE REPORTING
Performance monitoring and reporting is a specialised type of business analysis that can be done effectively using MS Excel.

5. OFFICE ADMINISTRATION
Office administrators use Excel to enter and store much of the data subsequently used for accounting and financial reporting, business analysis and performance reporting. Besides record-keeping, Excel is useful in office administration for day-to-day tasks such as invoicing, paying bills, and contacting suppliers and clients. It’s an all-purpose tool for keeping track of and managing office activities.

6. STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
Regarding Excel, strategic analysis is where business decisions are closely connected to the data and formulas on spreadsheets. You apply Excel to guide actions such as investments and asset allocations.

7. PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Although project managers have access to purpose-built Project Management (PM) software, an Excel Workbook is often an effective alternative.

8. MANAGING PROGRAMMES 
Excel is a good platform for managing programmes. It can be adapted to handle the specific characteristics of a given programme. And, because MS Excel is widely known, multiple people can easily manage programme records and, when the time comes, handed over to a new manager.

9. CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION
With Excel, many different contract management templates are available, and these can be adapted to suit the particular contract type or stage of the contract lifecycle.

10. ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Account managers are generally required to be competent MS Excel users since they receive and need to maintain customer records. The job of an account manager is to nurture relationships with existing clients of the business. The key goals are to achieve customer loyalty and repeat sales.