Data is the foundation for all decision-making in this business world. It is the strongest tool for analyzing sales, tracking business performance, or preparing financial statements. This is why Power BI and Excel dominate every commerce student’s journey.
One tool helps to organize, calculate, and make sense of the numbers, whereas the other tool transforms those numbers into visuals to tell a powerful story. From banking to finance and marketing, supply chain to analytics, both tools are used widely. Students who master these tools shine differently from others.
Now, the biggest question is: Power BI vs Excel – which should a commerce student focus on? Let’s explore both tools and find out how each tool can shape the learning and career of a student.
What is Power BI?
Power BI is a modern business intelligence tool developed by Microsoft. It makes the financial data and the complex business visually engaging and understandable. Students can create dashboards that lead to more rapid and insightful decision-making rather than working only on spreadsheets of numbers.
Power BI can be used in many different ways depending on the role. Developers, analysts, managers, and others use Power BI depending on the work. Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service, and Power BI mobile apps are the three main applications of Power BI.
Power BI helps with user-friendly dashboards for visual storytelling, and gives real-time data updates when connected to cloud or online sources. It also has advanced visualization tools like maps, slicers, trendlines, and more. It also combines multiple data sources.
Understanding Power BI provides a competitive advantage for commerce students who want to enter data-driven corporate roles.
What is Excel?
The most widely used and the most versatile tool in the business world is Excel. It is used as the first data-handling software that a commerce student learns. Excel is perfect for calculations, formulas, and quick analysis. It is used for data entry and tabular structure and supports financial modelling, budgeting, and forecasting. Excel offers pivot tables, charts, and filters.
Excel is simple and suitable for daily tasks. If you join any of the leading BCom Colleges in Bangalore, like EIMR, Excel will be one of the first tools to master due to its relevance in commerce-related subjects.
Power BI vs Excel: The Difference
Excel and Power BI are used for handling data. The academic tasks and the quick analysis can be done with Excel, whereas the interactive dashboards and visualization are done by Power BI. By knowing the difference between Power BI vs Excel, commerce students can use the right tool for the right tasks.
Use:
- The general-purpose spreadsheet tool used for data organisation, analysis, and reporting is Excel.
- Power BI is a business intelligence tool used for tracking KPIs and uncovering insights from business data.
Applications:
- Excel is a standalone application, and it is a part of Microsoft Office 365.
- Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service, and Power BI mobile apps are the applications of Power BI.
Visualization:
- Excel has visualization options like charts, such as bar, line, and pie charts.
- Power BI has a larger selection of visuals, which includes visuals from AppSource, with high interactivity.
Data Size:
- Excel has a data size of approximately 1 million rows and 16,000 columns per sheet.
- Power BI can handle millions of rows and a dataset limit of 1 GB.
Cloud-based features:
- There are no cloud-based publishing features in Excel.
- Power BI allows easy sharing with a PRO license.
Which Tool is Best for Commerce Students?
Excel and Power BI have their own advantage, and they are useful in their own way. The beginners can start with Excel as it teaches the essential business skills such as calculation, formatting, and data organisation.
Today, the role of commerce increasingly requires data interpretation and visual storytelling. In this situation, Power BI helps with modern business developments. The students who are aiming for corporate careers, knowing both Power BI and Excel, are at a big advantage.
Final Thoughts
Power BI vs Excel you don’t have to choose one over the other. Together, they will give a complete tool for both academic success and corporate readiness. Excel gives the foundation for data, and Power BI helps to advance into the world of modern business intelligence.
The commerce students at EIMR Business School get an added advantage as they provide certifications in Power BI and Excel free for all BCom students. It helps them to graduate with real-world skills.
Mastering both tools will position the commerce students as graduates ready to lead the digital business world.
