Since its release in 1985, companies of all sizes have relied on Excel for supply chain planning. It’s flexible, adaptable, and, when used well, can be one of the most robust tools in a planner’s toolbox. It can also become one of the biggest obstacles to planning efficiency.
Most companies have at least one workbook floating around with tabs upon linked tabs of data, buried IF statements, and obscure VLOOKUPs that only one person ever truly understood. And that person? They left the company or moved to another role long ago.
In the early stages of a company’s growth, Excel often works just fine. But as complexity increases and business needs evolve, Excel shifts from being a solution to being a bottleneck.
If your team is constantly chasing the plan, second-guessing numbers, or spending their day firefighting instead of proactively planning, it is likely time for a purpose-built planning solution.
Here are five key signs that your organization has outgrown Excel for supply chain planning—along with real examples we’ve seen across industries.
- Your team spends more time reconciling than planning.
When planners spend hours copying and pasting across files, managing version control, and validating formulas, they’re not planning—they’re spreadsheet wrangling.
Example
A company had eight planners maintaining separate spreadsheets by product category. Each file was updated weekly using different ERP reports. A single formula error in one tab caused a missed production order, resulting in a major stockout during peak season.
- Nobody trusts the numbers.
When planning, procurement, sales, and finance are each working from their own spreadsheets, the company ends up with multiple versions of the truth. Confidence erodes and decisions slow.
Example
A distributor discovered that sales, finance, and operations were all using different forecasts. Without a central system to anchor the plan, excess inventory ballooned in some channels while other channels ran dry.
- You can’t model constraints or lead time variability.
Excel is static by nature. Without specialized extensions, it’s difficult to model lead-time variability, capacity constraints, supplier reliability, or interdependencies across sites and products.
Example
A manufacturer relied on Excel to allocate demand across its regional plants. When raw material shortages hit during peak season, their spreadsheets couldn’t factor in which plants had the right tooling or flexibility to absorb the shift. Some sites became overbooked while others sat idle, leading to missed service level agreements (SLAs) and costly overtime.
- Scenario planning takes too long (or doesn’t happen at all).
Today’s supply chains demand fast answers to “what if” questions. What if we expedite this PO? What if a supplier goes offline? In Excel, scenario planning often means duplicating entire workbooks and manually modeling options.
Example
A manufacturer wanted to model the impact of a three-week delay from a key overseas supplier. Their Excel-based process took three days to produce a scenario. By then, leadership had already made a gut-based decision, and it was the wrong one.
- Collaboration happens in email chains and shared drives.
Without centralized planning tools, collaboration defaults to email, chat, or shared folders. These tools don’t capture decisions, assumptions, or changes in a structured way.
Example
A retailer who was planning promotions relied on emailed Excel files to coordinate DC replenishment. When an outdated file was sent to the warehouse by mistake, a key SKU never made it to stores, osting them a signficant revenue opportunity during a critical sales window.
What Comes Next?
Outgrowing Excel is a good thing. It means your supply chain has matured—and it deserves better tools.
Fortunately, there are plenty of options available: from lightweight planning platforms (some built as Excel extensions for user familiarity) to basic modules within ERPs, and full-scale advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems.
If your company is ready to move forward in its planning maturity journey, here are a few capabilities to prioritize in your next solution:
- Centralized data and version control
- Multi-site or multi-echelon planning
- Constraint modeling (lead times, capacities, priorities)
- Scenario modeling
- Collaboration workflows with audit trails
Excel will always have a place in the supply chain planning world, but it has its limitations. And it’s no longer the right tool for enterprise-level planning.
If you recognize any of these signs, it may be time to stop managing files—and start managing the plan.
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