The use of spreadsheets is essential if you are involved in management control. The versatility, immediacy, ease of use make them the most used tool by controllers.

However, spreadsheets have undeniable limitations that make them more and more a risk rather than an opportunity.

“There was an error in a cell …”; “It was not the last version of the file …”; “The formula had not been dragged to the end …”; “The file is too heavy …”. These are just a few examples of justifications for mistakes made using spreadsheets.

These phrases, if they become frequent, must sound like alarm bells.

But are we using the wrong approach? But are we using the right tool?

Poor data control, high probability of error, poor level of information sharing, low performance in the processing of large databases. These are just some of the limits of spreadsheets.

On the other side CPM and Business Intelligence solutions offer the possibility of overcoming these problems at low cost, providing companies with powerful, flexible and controlled tools and allowing the management control to make the big leap from the control of the formulas to the analysis of the data to provide management with reliable information on which to take successful solutions.