Why your Excel files are hindering the performance of your sales department

Claire Brunaud
2 hours ago
3 min read

For a long time, Excel was the default tool for sales management. Flexible, accessible, reassuring.

Even today, in many Foodservice business units, it remains at the heart of reporting, consolidations and performance analyses.

The problem is not Excel itself.

The problem is what it really costs your organization : in time, reliability, and decision-making capacity.

Excel gives the illusion of control… but can create friction in your sales department

At first glance, everything seems to be under control.

Shared files, tracking spreadsheets, custom-built indicators. Each team feeds in its data, and the report arrives every month.

In reality, the Sales Department devotes a significant portion of its energy to making the system work , rather than to driving performance.

Consolidate the figures, check the versions, correct the formulas, piece together extracts from multiple sources…

This work is invisible, yet omnipresent. And above all, it has no direct business value .

Wasted time: Excel's first hidden cost

How many hours were spent each month on:

compiling heterogeneous files,
manually reprocess data,
to respond to requests for figures already produced elsewhere
Explain why two reports don't tell the same story?

This time is rarely measured.

However, it mobilizes profiles with high added value: sales management, business managers, support teams.

While these resources are consolidating charts, they are not analyzing, anticipating, or enabling performance.

Unreliable data… and weakened decisions

The more an Excel file circulates, the more it degrades.

A corrupted formula, a misaligned column, a forgotten update. Errors are not intentional, but they are inevitable in a manual system.

Trust in data eventually erodes. Figures are systematically questioned. Meetings begin by validating data instead of discussing decisions.

For a Sales Department, this is a real risk.

Making a decision based on uncertain data is taking a strategic risk .

Excel reinforces silos instead of breaking them down

Another perverse effect: Excel reflects the organization… and therefore its silos.

Each team has its own file, its own logic, its own indicators. Sell-in is tracked on one side, sell-out on another, and financial data elsewhere. Cross-referencing this information becomes a complex, sometimes impossible, exercise.

The vision remains fragmented.

Performance is analyzed through a lens, never in its entirety.

However, in Foodservice, the Sales Department specifically needs a cross-functional perspective: linking sales, actual consumption, profitability and field execution.

When Excel slows down decision-making

In an environment as dynamic as Foodservice, timing is key.

With Excel, reporting often comes too late.

The figures are fixed, they look to the past, and the decision comes with a time lag.

Meanwhile, the market is shifting. Distributors are making decisions. End customers are changing their behavior.

The Sales Department then reacts to performance instead of managing it.

Moving from a calculation tool to a management tool

The real challenge is not to produce figures, but to transform them into quick and shared decisions .

This is where Excel's limitations become structural.

It was not designed to centralize, harmonize, and activate multiple data sources continuously.

A SaaS tool, on the other hand, allows you to:

automate data collection and consolidation,
to improve the reliability of the indicators,
cross-referencing sell-in, sell-out and business data,
to provide a common reading for the entire Sales Management team.

This is precisely the approach taken by KaryonFood: replacing stacks of files with a single management platform, designed for the real challenges of Foodservice.

The true cost of Excel: the missed opportunity

Excel doesn't hinder performance because it's bad.

It is slowing it down because it is no longer adapted to the current complexity.

The real cost is not only operational.

It is measured in delayed decisions, missed opportunities, and a lack of strategic clarity.

For a Sales Department, continuing to manage with Excel often means managing with a time lag .

The question is therefore not “should we abandon Excel?”

But rather: how much does it still cost to cling to it?

Do you want to see in concrete terms how to move away from Excel-dependent management and build a reliable and actionable vision of your Foodservice performance?

👉 Request a KaryonFood demonstration and discover how to free your Sales Department from the hidden costs of Excel.