Excel

Finance teams still run the core of their modelling in Excel — three-statement models, FP&A budgets, scenario planning, and board packs — because the depth of formulas, pivot tables, and Power Query beats anything else on the market for serious analysis. For CFOs, Excel is the native language of finance.

Operations and supply chain teams use Excel to reconcile data from ERPs, warehouse systems, and bank feeds where a quick VLOOKUP or Power Query transformation is faster than asking IT for a report. It remains the universal adapter between enterprise systems that do not talk to each other cleanly.

Consulting and advisory firms deliver client work in Excel because every client has it, models can be handed over without platform lock-in, and complex calculations are auditable cell by cell. Even teams that have moved to Airtable or BI tools typically keep Excel as the delivery format for finance-facing deliverables.