We had a great time recently visiting some clubs who have been fantastic with giving us an insight into how they manage their information. It really is Excel heaven out there. Over the past 15 years, elaborate spreadsheets have crept into the general fabric of the club executive’s office. The CEO (or analyst) has created a wonderful and sophisticated web of spreadsheet information which has become the fountain of knowledge for tactical decision-making and could well be as addictive as Facebook.
It is really pleasing to see such information evolve in this industry.
The fact that various executives within the team play a role in enhancing or updating the spreadsheets (wanting to gain insight into the successfulness of various programs) is a testament to their maturity in building business knowledge.
The number-loving Excel tool is accessible and relatively easy to use. Once you start knowing a little bit about Excel, it’s hard not to want to know more, and eventually you become a wizard at advanced calculations and data modelling.
However, as you bring more and more information into your spreadsheet, eventually the limitations of Excel start to surface. It has a spreadsheet size limit of 65,536 rows by 256 columns in early versions and a more generous 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 in later versions; so when working with multiple datasets that end up larger than this size limit, you have to split the file across multiple spreadsheets which can reduce analysis capability. Also, as your spreadsheets get bigger, increasingly more memory is taken up on your computer and this can cause problems with data storage and eventual crashing of the files. Other potential risks include file corruption, accidental deletion and security. And then finally, there’s the annoying little circular reference problems that refuse to go away, unless of course you’re up to speed with using Excel macros.
But now, we're proud to say, there is a solution that’s up for the picking.
Our new CDOL Advantage tool will give you access to your own data-cube (stored in our data-warehouse) so that you can produce the best reports you’ve ever made in your life! It’s here that you can be a real wizard with producing the same ones you love, but at the same time, inventing new ones as they’re needed.
To support you even further, we have produced a series of dashboard reports that report your whole business data (membership, loyalty, gaming, POS and more) and this gives you a convenient and easy way to drill down and see what’s happening across your whole business. You can use the dashboards and datacube at the same time and this gives you a lot of flexibility to find answers quickly because whilst most of us have the same business questions to ask, sometimes we have our own specific ones, or just have to ask the same one but in a slightly different way.
We invite you to come see us at the upcoming CMAA (stand 64) or HGA (stand 98) Expos, but if you wish to call us prior, we can arrange for you to take a look and be privy to our exclusive first-in pre-show offer. But be quick, because the show is coming, and it’s going to be a big one!
P.S. Thanks for the coffees
