Transcript

So in this episode today we will talk about why it is so difficult to replace Axel on time with Doctor and Surge Log Tech Podcast. So Serge, I think, what do you think? Let's start with that one. Hi, Doc. It's for rescuing. Yes, Yeah. So I'm going to take guy. So I'm really fascinated with Excel. And like most of these startups, even in lock tech, they try to replace Excel. You know that I have been a mentor and a coach to quite a few startups, right? They use me as individuals because I've got to reach and all that. And literally I've seen a slide of a startup I don't want to name. They raised 20 million. And the slide was saying, oh, supply chain is very complex because most of the communication and workflows are managed in Excel and Outlook, right? But there's a reason for that, right? There is more money, but they're struggling to sell their software because this again try to solve the problem, which is what replace Excel and basically Outlook, right? In our episode on supply chain visibility on our new podcast Doctor Surge, we talked about velocity, visibility and variability, right? What's basically Excel does is provide huge amount of velocity and may enable us or supply chain people to manage a lot of variability, right and do it very quickly and then it's about. Communication that you do whatever an extra seed, for example, you need to send your customers a new delivery dates or a new ETA or new work quantities, whatever. You don't Excel, download data from ERP within Excel, attach and send right, right. Then the information is transferred. So customer is getting a visibility and vice versa. So you're actually solving a problem, which is a problem if you say visibility, integrated visibility is not there for maturity. I think that's a valid problem statement. But what is not valid problem statement is Excel is not a problem. You need to find a solution actually which is better, faster, cheaper and flexible. Than Excel right so raising a 20 million and making a very very complex software but not only that not only that not only that yeah it's not going to solve the problem you're raising money with right because Excel is generally if you just get a basic Microsoft license you can get it so think about all the Excel what does Excel use Excel is used to create a standard work is used to create do lot of calculation especially is probably the best software when it comes to planning people have. MRP in there. OK, then they link with the Power BI to lose. Yeah, yeah, text now. People complain about let's do automation now Microsoft, I've got this tool core Power Automate here you go through basically you can link with your Excel with Power BI analytics and do Power Automate. Then you can really create your own, let's call it automate information visibility software, which you can basically work with inside and outside. And what is the cost for that is actually not more than a couple of hundred time. It's your time, it's your time. Yeah. So the real cost for people is to. Disrupt. That is the. Expertise and time people have to put in Excel. So the problem which needs sorting is not replacing Excel is making people do big, quicker, faster, better and cheaper what they do in Excel. Do you think it's possible? Okay, Excel have like a billion users maybe so that's why everybody's after Excel. But the reason why they believe the main reason yeah, but of course, most of probably 99% of all the Excel users, they just read Excel sheets. They don't produce them, Yeah. Even 1% out of a billion. It's like huge customer base, right. But the whole premise of getting rid of Excel is all these developers view that it's not structured enough. Like Excel is like a plain slate. You can type in whatever you want, so you can make mistakes, but manually typing with Excel. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but the main premise. Of getting rid of Excel is like to introduce some structure to that that will do all checks and everything yeah, right. But that's the wrong problem to solve. What have to be solved is a broader workflow. So what I'm saying is that Excel is automation tool and it what it automates, it automates re calc of all these cells and sums and all that right You say recall. Umm, that's not a simple concept. So explain the concept to recap. So you have this Excel sheet, yeah, with all these formulas, right? And now you can put some digits and then have all the things recalculated. So like you look up formula analytics or predictions of focus of forecasts, right? Yeah. So time series analytics, it will be recalculated and it's easily. Inexpensively just to change few digits or a whole column and get everything recalculated but Google sheet came in. But they almost replicate if you want to ask me, right? The exhibits even you can open any Excel sheet into Google Sheet or you can save Google Sheet as Excel sheet. Yeah, the guy searched by doing distributed Excel and distributed doc files. So what they did is a software that you can have 2-3 guys editing the same document and the document was a real Excel and the real doc file just sitting on the server. So it was a startup. So they were. Holding that thing and they were trying to find customers right and back in the days Google at ads where a new thing very inexpensive so they've funneled their sales channel with all these cheap Google ads Google guys saw that like somebody is trying to run ads on Excel and all that yeah and like paying real money for Google ads like at first one of. First hundred or first thousand of Google app users, so they. Start using that tool themselves and then Google acquired that they will have to rewrite the whole thing to run in browser now and now it's runs in the browser and it becomes a competitor so the only thing they've added to that is this collective editing of those docs couldn't do basically we checks out couldn't do couldn't do right but now it's now going to a cloud yeah yeah, I'm doing the same thing that similarly there's. Phil comma gross smart sheet. I don't know about smart sheets. Have you heard of them? Yeah, yeah. So again, they're trying to be in that Excel kind of market trying to automate or table there table do the same thing. And in fact, Notion could do us to kind of, yeah, kind of weird editing as well. Yeah. So people are adopting those, let's call it. Excel is smart, confidence is workflow and calculations into that, right? And I think that approach is, I think more adoptable. To the supply chain logistics people, rather than trying to replace. Yeah, it's just because supply chain is rebuilding itself. It's like Athenex, right? It burns and revives itself. Yeah. So you constantly rerouting something new, suppliers new, I don't know, the tearing down racks, putting new racks, like always changing constantly. Yeah, so and software is something rigid. If you go with custom software, it's just a rigid thing. So if like once you've decided that you're not going to change any of that, like you can cement that in some custom software, right? Otherwise, and that's actually by default, day by day, every day, you keep changing all your processes, tweaking. So and that's basically much easier to do with tools like Excel, Power domain or Google Sheets. So this market of those supplies and softwares. Has built on the inadequacies of Excel. I would call it five years ago, kind of just yesterday, I was running. My my own Excel like 2000 thousand records wow in one of them yeah just to analyze sales myself and. Every time. So there were plenty of these lookups and sums, conditional sums and it told any I I've changed small thing and then I have to wait for a minute or two to recall that in the cloud, even in the cloud, Yeah, OK, so but. And I tried to switch to some other tool, but that's a hard thing to do, OK, because of all the other tools are structured. You have to name your tables. You have to name your columns. You have to decide on the data structure. Yeah, on the format of all the and like. And I was always going back and forth. Oh, like, OK, I can spend a day or two trying to put all this metadata. On top of my data to tell that tool like how treated and only then it will be able to do anything good with that or I can stick to Excel, just wait for this one minute 2 minute that it builds up again in 2 days I I did I've done that in Excel. So I didn't go for although I'm a skilled developer I can go for big query. I can use all these other tools that can do like Air table or Tableau, but. Basically just switching from one solution to another, it's it takes a day or two. Yeah. And if you're doing that calculation once like like I did, I just never go for it, right. Yeah, no. So you mentioned just now. That naming of the data, yeah, which itself is a problem. I know so many softwares, right, rely on Excel for this just one facility because most of the data sets in ERP, let's call it the two bigger one, Oracle, SAP, right? Any other supplies and software could be logistics, WMS system, could be demand forecasting, inventory, procurement, you name it. If you ask them OK, you will like it software, how are you going to get data? Actually we have designed a file right with a structured file, right. What you could do is you could download the data in Excel to name it, and then import it and then run what we call it a query, right? Right. And to run the data overnight, and then we're going to import it into our software. But spend a week or two trying to clear your data clearly. OK, but what do they do? Mapping, right? So for example, if you're running the inventory report right, you will say, OK, you have a file, let's call it MDG. And as AB, OK, you can download that, right? And download into Excel, then you name it based on the file which your software can read, right? Yeah. But the problem is like the date format we call it, we used to call it Cron job. Cron job means you download the data. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Download the fresh, fresh, run some Linux in the cloud. Pretty soon you will have that either within Excel or in other tools that will receive your data in any form. But we said that now the Microsoft is working very fast. Hmm using against JD with what they claim they have used their own AI and some elements of AI. So they got this copilot building correct and we've seen the videos of the demos of the copilot that you literally lied on copilot. I need a presentation. For my daughters graduation party, blah blah. Yeah, it will do everything. It will take the pictures from the cloud and we'll put it together, create your presentation. Same with work. So same will be for Excel. Yeah. So basically you just throw in the data and tell the compiler these new, it's not alms now. So GPD 5 will be able to do that task. Like you take your phone, you just videotape all the boxes and pallets and then tell I want an Excel with all the products. One of these dimensions everything and we will do that from video to Excel table, OK in an instant that will will see that probably in one or two years, maybe sooner. Yeah, no, but OK, so but I think are pretty bad in maths. Good day, LM. Right, because they are yeah. Yeah, but that that that's fixable too. With the agents. Ohh. You know what the agents are? Agents are the Yeah. So do a certain task. No, no, just that It's just that it's not just one LLM. It's like a crowd of agents. So you have this like SCCM guy. You have. Accountant girl and you have a calculator, Johnny. The thing is that SM guy is LM account as LLM and Johnny is really a calculator. So Johnny calculates without any mistakes. LM will ask Johnny to perform the task and will be done without any errors. OK so because Johnny is pretty good at math and then LLM will compete for 1/3 on that result. Future of excel is in my view is actually. A lot stronger than any other AI or any other software even air based in cells trying to replace Excel yeah correct. And the Excel does lots of things now super chart Excel super chart Excel will not do a single thing. But again, we'll do a whole bunch of things on time with doctor and surge Logitech podcast.