9. Who uses spreadsheets?

Accountants

Accountants need to keep track of all of the money coming into the business and all of the payments going out.

They need to be able to calculate profits and forecast how well they think the business will do during the next year.

They also need to calculate the wages of all the staff each month.

Teachers

Teachers can use spreadsheets to keep track of marks given for homework and recording exam results.

Engineers

Engineers need to perform thousands of calculations when designing bridges, buildings, aeroplanes, cars etc.

They need to make sure that bridges will be able to support themselves and will not collapse under the weight of traffic or the force of strong winds. They need to work out how deep the foundations of a house need to be in order to support the walls and roof. They need to make sure that the aerodynamics of a plane will enable it to take off and fly.

Sales people

Sales people use spreadsheets to keep track of the items they sell, the value of the items, the profit made on each item and more importantly, the commission they have earned!

Scientists

Scientists need to be able to keep track of their results from experiments.

They use spreadsheets to help them to analyse what happened with the experiment and also to predict what might happen if they were to change one variable.

Supermarkets

Supermarkets use spreadsheets to keep track of finances i.e. sales, losses and money spent.

They also use spreadsheets to work out queuing times and what are the best number of checkouts to have open at any one time during the day.

Market researchers

Market researchers collect data from shoppers about their spending habits and their awareness of different brands. All of this data has to be collated and analysed in order to provide the company with a detailed report of what customers think about their products.