Microsoft South Africa has launched the Office Excel Champs competition, which aims to find the country’s greatest Excel practitioner, whether he or she is a student, teacher, business professional or simply loves crunching numbers for fun.
“There have been many inventions and innovations that have spurred on human achievement, but there are few technology developments that have fundamentally changed society or the way in which business gets done. These include the PC, the Internet, and even the humble spreadsheet,” says Mark Dorfling, product marketing manager at Microsoft South Africa.
Microsoft Excel spreadsheets have become the financial information highway for delivering and making the most of business data and intelligence, which forms the foundation for daily business decisions across all industries and organisations of all sizes. Every day, companies use Excel as an indispensable tool, needed to make the most of data as well as resources, maximise return on investment, and to display financial information and other data relevant to the running of the business.
Through the Office Excel Champs SA competition, Excel-enthusiasts will be able to put their skills to the test and duke it out with contestants from around the country to discover South Africa’s spreadsheet grandmaster.
Excelling in the art of spreadsheets
Round 1 commences this week, with the Top 30 competitors being announced on 4 April. These 30 contenders will compete in the second round that kicks off on 4 April as well, resulting in the Top 10 being revealed on 18 April. The final round commences on 25 April with the finalists being announced on 2 May. The finals will then take place on 27 May at the Microsoft South Africa offices in Bryanston, Johannesburg.
The winner will have the honour of being SA’s first “Excel Grand Master” and will also receive the latest Dell Latitude E7470 notebook, a subscription to Office 365, Lumia 1320 smartphone, a Jabra headset, and Microsoft mouse.
“The Office Excel champion might be anyone from a CFO through to a first-year varsity student. He or she will definitely possess a special sense of tables and figures, and will be particularly adept at helping businesses turn a seemingly meaningless expanse of data into an invaluable overview of and insights into the organisation through the power of Excel. Is that you?” concludes Dorfling.
Join @MicrosoftSA on the official Facebook page to enter the competition.