Proficient in Excel - Next step?

I've gotten pretty Excel competent over the last few months and am now considering allocating some of my daily "Excel time" to another piece of software. Learning R sounds pretty compelling, but I'm thinking that, after only 50 hours of experience, I won't be confident enough in my R-derived conclusions to share them. Am I wrong to think that beginner R knowledge would be squandered as an analyst?

If not, what other piece of software would be useful to learn (besides my becoming quicker in Excel and PPT)?

Alternatively, can experienced monkeys recommend books on Excel-based analysis along the lines of "Data Smart"? Thanks as always.

2 Comments
 

what are you focused/interested in? when you say "competent" in excel, does that include VBA? I personally love R, but unless you are doing very math/stat heavy work it probably is not the most valuable.

if you don't use VBA, start there. Object oriented and will give you a good foundation and since you're using excel it will be instantly applicable. In my opinion, if you are new focus more on understanding concepts. This will pay dividends long-term and will make you far more efficient when learning something new, even R. Using excel is far different from coding.

All that said, learning R can be a game changer. For instance, multivariate reg loops in excel can be annoying without add-ins or heavy coding. What would take me 30 minutes in excel I can do in 2 minutes in R. Plus, R is becoming more widely used in finance so good on a resume. RStudio is awesome.

There are tons of great books for excel/vba and R. most of which you can easily find online (for free if you must). You can check out, Financial Analysis and Modeling Using Excel and VBA, Benninga's books, etc.

 
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