Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), Ranchi, and Marketing Management Programme organised a three-day Faculty Development Program-cum-Workshop on Business Modelling and Data Analysis using Ms-Excel via online.

Dr BP Mahapatra, Head of Marketing Management Programme, welcomed the guest, resource people, and participants to the workshop and highlighted that XISS is committed to excellence in education and such target-oriented workshops will take place in future as well.

Dr Joseph Marianus Kujur SJ, Director, XISS, during the workshop reiterated the commitment of XISS for quality education and said that in today's data-driven world, proficiency in Excel is indispensable for professionals across various domains to make informed decisions, identify trends, and optimize business processes for better output.

The workshop began with an inaugural session, where Dr Pradeep Kerketta SJ, Assistant Director, XISS set emphasis on the importance of Excel in today’s time. He said that Data Analysis and Business Modelling using Excel aims to equip Students, Research Scholars, and Faculty with the essential skills and knowledge required to leverage Excel to its potential and its potential should be used by all.

The keynote speaker of the workshop, Purna Chandra Rao Duggirala, is the Founder of chandoo.org, an award-winning Excel and Power BI site, with over 100,000 members. He also runs a YouTube channel with over 600,000+ followers. He emphasized the unparalleled importance of Excel as the most widely used business software across industries and said that mastering certain advanced Excel skills can significantly enhance productivity, efficiency, and decision-making in the professional world. He mentioned that the five most powerful, time-saving Excel concepts are, Dynamic Arrays in Excel, Automation, AI features of Excel, Interactive analysis of data, and Forecasting with Excel which are widely used across the globe.

Earlier in the session, Dr Amar Eron Tigga, Dean Academics highlighted the importance and fundamentals of Excel and discussed its advance application which will further empower participants to apply Excel-based data analysis techniques to solve real-world business problems and make informed decisions.

The day continued with multiple sessions, where a session on Smart handling of data using Excel-I was conducted by Dr Ratnesh Chaturvedi. The workshop is coordinated by Dr Madhumita Singha, Associate Professor and Dr Amar Eron Tigga, Dean Academics. Dr Singha took sessions on the Descriptive Statistics, t-test etc./Pivot Power Pivot & What if Analysis Solver.

The key topics covered during the session were Introduction to Excel for Data Analysis, Business Modelling Fundamentals, Decision Support Tools, Advanced Data Analysis in Excel, Data Visualization Techniques, and Statistical Analysis. The workshop saw participation of students, research scholars, industry practitioners who were keen to become an expert in Excel.