Beyond Scutwork: The New ROI of Ultra-Productive Excel Users in an AI World

SUMMARY: Excel users in the AI era must evolve from task-doers to insight accelerators—with an AI-assisted, all-Excel strategy. By automating data pipelines—creating flowbooks with Power Query and integrating AI—they eliminate busywork and focus on deep analysis, cross-system collaboration, and strategic problem-solving. This new paradigm shifts ROI from spreadsheet volume to decision quality, turning Excel professionals into strategists who drive meaningful business outcomes. Here’s an introduction to the new strategy.

For years, we rewarded Excel output—like accurate reports completed on deadline. But AI has changed the game.

Today, software can handle repetitive tasks faster, cheaper, and with fewer errors. What’s left for humans is the work machines can’t do well: innovating, thinking, interpreting, and deciding. That shift forces us to rethink what productivity really looks like.

The Wrong Kind of Productivity

Many Excel users still spend their days cleaning data, copying formulas, and rebuilding reports. Managers might praise this as hard work, but in truth, it’s waste. It’s scutwork!

Scutwork adds delay, creates errors, and keeps smart people stuck in boring, low-value, maintenance mode.

If your Excel users spend many hours of scutwork every month, you’re burning talent instead of leveraging it.

As Bernard Marr explains in his LinkedIn article The New ROI: Rethinking Value in a World of AI-Augmented Work, AI reshapes the value equation. It’s no longer about the number of tasks completed but about the quality of insight and action those tasks support.

That same logic applies to Excel work—whether done in the office or at home. Instead of measuring productivity by spreadsheet volume, we should measure it by business impact.

The opportunity cost of the old scutwork strategy is gut-wrenching!

From Manual to Meaningful

This is where the Excel Data Plumbing (EDP) Strategy changes everything. Excel users don’t need to live in a cycle of refresh and rebuild. They can automate their data imports, clean data as it flows in, and deliver always-current insights.

The result is a new kind of Excel workbook: a flowbook. It doesn’t just store numbers. It delivers understanding.

Flowbooks connect directly to trusted data. When commanded, they use Power Query to flow data from multiple sources, through multiple transformations, to multiple reflows—flowbook-automated reports, analyses, forecasts, etc.

After users issue one command, they see up-to-date, error-checked reflows—ready for decision-making. No more late nights, scrambling to rebuild broken reports or double-checking formulas for links and errors.

Thinking, Not Fixing

Flowbooks free up time. But more importantly, they free up focus. Excel users can spend time doing what GenAI like ChatGPT can’t: spotting trends, asking better questions, and helping teams align.

Instead of asking, “Did we finish the report?” teams start asking, “What should we do next?” That’s the new ROI.

An analyst who once spent ten hours a week updating a sales report now relies on a flowbook. Her update takes seconds, and she uses the saved time to explore which SKUs drive profitability.

A finance lead builds a forecasting tool with built-in indicators from FRED. He no longer builds slides by hand. He guides strategy.

A remote team shares a single flowbook that always shows current revenue, cash, and costs. They’re in sync without a single meeting.

The Strategic Advantage

Flowbooks aren’t just time-savers. They’re enablers. They reduce errors, lower stress, and eliminate dependence on a few “Excel heroes” who know where all the data lives.

They also help companies scale. One well-built flowbook can serve an entire department without adding headcount or overhead.

Old question: How long did this take? New question: What did this help us discover?

Managers need to stop tracking hours and start measuring impact. When your Excel team delivers better decisions, they’re doing high-value work. That work doesn’t always look busy. But it’s what the business needs most.

The Real ROI Is Insight

AI won’t replace all Excel users. But it will replace the ones who never moved beyond manual tasks. Those who embrace automation, context, innovation, and communication will thrive.

They won’t just report on the business. They’ll help shape it. They’ll add insight-rich value.

Success isn’t about busywork anymore. It’s about results. Excel users who adopt the EDP Strategy stop being spreadsheet jockeys. They become creative problem-finders and -solvers. They become strategists. In a world shaped by AI, that’s where the real value lives.

Turn Excel users into insight accelerators—equip them with the EDP Strategy. Join the EDP Institute today.