On December 11th, after a frenetic final, Canadian Michael Jarman lifted his world champion belt on a Las Vegas stage. However, this victory did not come from a traditional sports competition; his discipline is closer to e-sports (some argue it should be considered as such). Jarman is the Excel world champion. Irishman Diarmuid Early won the subdivision of the world financial modeling cup. While the world adapts to artificial intelligence and its promise to optimize processes, there are a group of die-hards who remember the power of tables and spreadsheets, much more accessible and familiar, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.
It is difficult to calculate how many people use these tools every day. According to Microsoft data, there are about 1.1 billion users of their productivity services, including Excel, but not all users utilize it as other services like Outlook or Word are also included. A survey by the British school Acuity Training among professionals revealed that two out of three workers use these types of programs every hour, with 38% of their time dedicated to Excel, Sheets, or similar. While not a representative sample of society, it gives an idea of how widespread spreadsheets are.
"It is a tool used in all companies," summarizes Miguel Antúnez, a teacher and owner of the online school Excelyfinanzas. He has around 5,000 active students, albeit at different levels, which also works against Excel: "The famous user level, which does a lot of harm."
Antúnez does not believe that these tools will disappear with the arrival of AI and its promises: "We will all leave the world, our children will leave, and Excel will remain; it is a very powerful tool." He explains that between sheets and macros - actions or processes that are recorded and automated - "there are no limits." "I have seen connections from Excel to a bank so that the company can download the treasury," he recalls. Therefore, the benefit is measured in working hours: "It gives you the possibility, and this is literal, not marketing, that what used to take hours now takes seconds."
However, Antúnez acknowledges that it is a tool with great potential, but that potential is hidden: "Not even companies really know the potential it has." He relates this to another problem, which is wanting to learn to perform specific processes rather than the more general functioning of these applications. This allows a person to use Excel again for new functions if they change jobs or a company changes processes. "It is much more powerful than a spreadsheet," he concludes.
Ana Pineda, an aerospace engineer from Madrid, aspires to be one of the participants in this year's Excel world championship. In 2024, she came close to qualifying, finishing in 200th place out of 128 participants. This year, the quota has been expanded to 256 spots: "If I perform the same or better this year, I would qualify," she celebrates in a conversation with EL MUNDO.
Pineda trains in her daily life. At work, for example: "The first thing I did was create a macro that reads my emails and redirects them with the information to the person I need to send them to." Her interest in the tool in the workplace actually began by automating weekly reporting processes. "From there, the sky's the limit: I started trying to automate everything I could." However, she admits that she already used the program for calculus subjects during her studies: "I created a program for orbit calculations with Excel, another for engine performance...".
This engineer doesn't stop there. Not by a long shot. "Since I enjoyed Excel so much, in my free time, I used to create board games," she starts. "For example, I made the game of Battleship," she continues, although she laughs because she knows how it sounds. She is aware that her hobby is at least peculiar; her acquaintances also think so: they are the ones who encouraged Pineda to try to qualify for the championship. "They have accepted it. They say: 'I'm sure Ana has an Excel for this,' and indeed, I do," the engineer says. Then, she lists the documents she uses: for expense tracking, for tax declarations, or a mortgage simulator. "The user can enter three, four, or five options they are interested in, with the conditions and the loan they want to apply for, and it shows the monthly installment, the interest, and an amortization table." But that's not all: she also has a macro so that the same amortization table calculates the best way to amortize in time or in installments to minimize interest. "That file is highly valued," Pineda jokes again.
Although he has not competed, Nacho Pereira, a 51-year-old from Madrid, has significantly reduced his workload. "In the end, people know two things and poorly done," he explains, and he "managed." After studying - starting with YouTube tutorials and ending up teaching - he managed to optimize the program so that in his previous job at a law firm, he could invoice the procedures of a bank client, between 15,000 and 20,000 a month. "It used to take me a morning or a whole day easily," he recalls. Then, "I had it done in two hours." It also allowed him until a year ago to do administrative work in his wife's company. "Everything stays at home," he jokes, but it saved them an employee. And, like Pineda, he uses it in his daily life to manage his mortgage: "I have to talk to them, they made some miscalculations."
On the other hand, Francisco Gómez, 54, lives near Barcelona and works with Antúnez analyzing company data. In this blacksmith's home, of course, there is no wooden spoon that is worth anything, and he constantly resorts to spreadsheets. But even before, when he was a cook, he also did it thanks to a Google tool that turns his spreadsheets into applications: "You do the inventory, the ordering... and in an application, I made a data model with the five menus, the ingredients, if they had allergens, or the orders." Today he uses a similar one, which he shares with his partner, for grocery shopping. "When I add a product to the list, it opens the page with the price comparison of different supermarkets," he says nonchalantly.
"For small businesses, I think it's even necessary," emphasizes Ana Pineda, who continues to strive to qualify for the Excel world championship. Last year's final is on YouTube, where you can see that even the commentators are lost when trying to broadcast the tests. Despite this, it has accumulated almost 300,000 views, and according to the engineer, there are also people who watch the qualifying rounds live. "I won't say it's like a Real Madrid-Barça match, but it's quite good for something that is essentially doing numbers in a cell."