With 750 million users worldwide, Excel is the go-to for any financial analysis. The aviation finance industry is no exception in relying on the spreadsheet software for investment analysis.
However, as customer fleets grow, reliance on Excel alone for asset management leads to inefficient processes and any envisaged economies of scale are lost.
Drawbacks of Excel for aviation asset management
Change Management / Version Control – once a spreadsheet is shared, tracking changes across an organization is unworkable, especially as users grow. Identification of the “latest or correct” version causes delay in time-to-market.
Key-person risk – for good reasons, asset forecasting and valuation models undergo many version updates as requirements evolve – each iteration making the Excel model more esoteric. Consequently, there is one or at best a handful of personnel depended upon to competently run/validate the Excel model. Over time, this situation culminates in legacy, handover and model IP issues as individuals inevitably move on. there is often one person responsible for running legacy pricing spreadsheet models: “the model guy”. But when that person is away or leaves the company, getting the next person up to speed can bring workflows to a screeching halt.
Security – while cloud environments are generally secure, it is all too easy to download a spreadsheet file locally, leaving an organization exposed to data and intellectual property loss. Limited data security exists within spreadsheets to protect against the loss of intellectual property (IP).
Absence of Integration and Automation – perhaps its greatest drawback, Excel’s lack of automation and database connectivity leads to onerous periodic processes for portfolio and fleet managers in maintaining technical and lease statuses for forecasting. Such manual processes are prone to greater operational risk from human errors, e.g. copy-paste. Beyond the risk of human error, duplicative data entry for mundane monthly reporting leads to unnecessary headcount growth.
Large Data Limitations – Excel suffers performance issues when dealing with large datasets stored within sheets. Externally linked datasets only increase the potential for data corruption; and therefore, wasted effort. Every analyst has faced the daunting task of opening a 20+ MB file.
How Aerlytix overcomes these challenges?
At Aerlytix, we recognize the ubiquity of Excel and how it is embedded as a primary 'front-end' for diverse functions across a business.
The Aerlytix Excel Add-in gives direct in-cell query access to all current and forecasted outputs from the Analytics Suite. Querying is performed within a spreadsheet cell via the Aerlytix (“.AX”) custom function library – containing 500+ custom query functions.
Pricing Model Integration – Aerlytix customers continue to use their Excel-based pricing spreadsheets, with all core maintenance and lease cashflows originating from the Analytics Suite. Previously heavy spreadsheets become just another “light front-end view” to the Aerlytix application. Users confidently price individual aircraft and portfolios, maintaining a consistent assumption basis while ensuring auditability.
Automated Maintenance Cashflows – Aerlytix integrates with both industry leading appraisers, and the major asset management systems relied upon by the aviation industry. Previously stagnant contracts management data and utilization reports are available at the fingertips of portfolio managers to extract on-the-fly cashflows via Excel Add-in custom functions. Execute strategy with the most up-to-date data available.
“Go-to” Approval Papers– the Aerlytix product suite enables users to work with unparalleled efficiency, however management still want approval papers and reporting in the ‘normal template’. The Excel Add-in allows users to quickly update standard budget templates, investment memos, actual investment performance, and FP&A reports in seconds.
Bespoke Technical Analysis – the Analytics Suite enables users to make sophisticated maintenance forecast decisions with intuitive graphs, visualization, and hundreds of scenario parameters. Technical teams can then extract the lowest level of LLP detail directly into bespoke part-out models with the Excel Add-in.
Sophisticated Debt Structuring – Aerlytix has a proven ability to scale to fleets exceeding +600 aircraft. Customers keep complex debt structures such as ABS waterfalls and warehouse facilities up-to-date with the ability to refresh portfolio cashflows and stress-test DSCRs with “what-if” analysis in seconds.
The Aerlytix Excel Add-in gives every user the capability to connect any spreadsheet to the Aerlytix Analytics Suite, ensuring maximum output flexibility - all wrapped within the permissions, controls and security of the Analytics Suite. All at no additional cost.
Sitting within every Aerlytix customers’ excel ribbon is the Aerlytix Excel Add-in application.
For more details contact us or request a demo.