Customer Reviews

Analyzing Business Data with Excel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like the viewpoint of this book; I have a business problem, now how do I attack that in Excel? So many books come at business problems from the perspective of a specific feature in the product. This book teaches the solution to a complex business data analysis problem through use of the features in Excel. Excellent!

It's a small book. The text is a little terse, but that's ok. Screenshots are used sparingly.

If what you want is a feature by feature breakdown of Excel then this book isn't for you. But if what you have is some data that you need to crunch and you don't know much about Excel then check this book out.

As a strategy analyst I'm always looking for concise ways to present data and make it automated and professional-looking without lots of code that none of my clients can use.

I agree with the previous reviewer, other books come at Excel and similar applications with a feature by feature breakdown so that in usage YOU have to work backwards to figure out how to apply software features to your problem.

This book is organized by business problem and then proceeds to breakdown how your problem applies to the software solution. There is very useful code in some of the models, but nothing horribly difficult to implement.

Excellent addition to my reference library. I've truly never seen a business data analysis book as well put together as this and I've been searching for years. You will not be disappointed.

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.

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.

Gerald Knight's Analyzing Business Data With Excel provides an outstanding set of connections between Excel and standard business use. Plenty of 'how to' computer books focus on the fundamentals of learning Excel without applying these lessons to basic business data analysis: Analyzing Business Data With Excel solves this in using real- world business problems as examples. From pivot tables and charts to statistical analysis choices and applications which can be easily updated, no business user should be without Analyzing Business Data With Excel.

The book has errors in its formulas. Even the data sets used throughout the book cannot be found on the book's website. It is also very dull to read. I feel like I am reading a dictionary or reference book. It could be better if they contained updates that fixes the errors in its formulas, provided exercise problems to practice all the Excel skills it tries to teach you, and provided a CD or website location that contains all the data for the examples the book uses. It should try to relate its examples to real world problems or projects that you would actually use in a job situation. For example, the book can try to build several Excel models, with each chapter building a function or module of the overall model. All in all, I would not recommend the book. I'm surprised all 5 reviews thus far has given it 5 stars. It makes me say hmmmmmmm.