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Your article "Spreadsheet Hell?" (Summer) overlooked the most important question: flexibility. The specialized financial-software vendors can yap all they want about how easy it is to change things in their system, but it comes at the cost of doing things within the framework they have provided. Spreadsheets make it nearly impossible to make major alterations to a large complex model, but if you're starting from scratch or building a prototype, you have unlimited freedom to set things up the way you want. In using dedicated systems, I am constantly running into walls where the designers simply didn't build in the tools needed to do the job. A quick dump to a spreadsheet, and I'm off and running.
It is impossible for software vendors to anticipate all the analytical needs of the companies they serve. That's why there will always be a role for spreadsheets. It is, in fact, the same role they have always held and the role they have always been most appropriate for. If it appears that spreadsheets have extended their role into areas they should never have been used for, that only reflects the degree to which dedicated packages have lagged behind user needs. You will see that same equilibrium shift off and on in the future. Dedicated software vendors would be wise to watch that shift. But to talk about spreadsheets being obsolete is pure drivel. It misses the point.
Barry Kruse
Via E-mail
I read your article concerning spreadsheets and thought that it is truly a dark day when CFOs are reluctant to implement time-saving technology due to concerns over Sarbanes-Oxley. If anything, CFOs need to press forward at breakneck speed to untangle the mess that many of us have created in relying so heavily on inadequate technology — primarily spreadsheets, which have so many inherent problems in maintaining data integrity. The spreadsheet "crutch" has evolved due to the proliferation of companywide "technologies du jour," which have created a cobweb of disparate systems that make the CFO's life a nightmare as we try to make sense of it all and tie it back together for financial reporting.
While most of your articles showcase large corporations, I feel especially fortunate to be implementing time-saving technology in a relatively small company environment. As a CFO, I have developed technology that has driven financial-reporting efficiency in an industry that has been highly regulated for years (community banking), and in which producing timely and accurate reports was of paramount importance long before Sarbanes-Oxley.
Peter W. Minford
Executive Vice President and CFO
First Bank of Idaho
Sun Valley Bancorp
Managing Member, Data Informatics LLC
Revenue Is What Matters
Regarding Nick Carr's continuing rant on the questionable value- add of IT ("The Tract of the Matter," Summer), if he were really cold-eyed and clearheaded, he would actually calculate the amount of revenue to allocate to IT along with all the other corporate resources and then make the argument about how much value IT actually adds. Alas, because he has no way of allocating revenue to IT, he cannot help us resolve this important question. In fact, almost none of the ROI-on-IT approaches your magazine routinely covers tackles the issue of estimating, using some objective and verifiable method, the amount of revenue that should be allocated to IT. To do this, they would have to estimate the amount of revenue to allocate to all corporate resources.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could once and for all resolve the issue of how much value all corporate resources add by estimating how much revenue to allocate to each in proportion to its contribution — again using some objective and verifiable allocation method. The accounting profession has abandoned us in this quest since they don't think it is even possible to allocate revenue inside corporate boundaries. My suggestion is that we look outside the accounting profession for now to find our answers, and then invite the accountants to the party and ask them to help resolve any issues with the revenue-allocation method. Until this issue is resolved, we will continue to mud wrestle in this subjective IT value quagmire.
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