When an SME starts thinking seriously about running its business on data, three names come up almost every time: Excel, Power BI, Google Sheets. Here’s an honest comparison, without overselling any of the three.
Excel: the universal tool, but not a steering tool
Excel is already paid for (bundled with Office), already familiar to everyone, and needs no extra setup. For a one-off use case, it’s unbeatable. The problem shows up over time: a broken formula goes unnoticed, there’s never a guarantee that the version emailed around is the right one, and even when it’s neatly stored on a server or network share, the file stays dependent on whoever built it — that person is the one who understands the logic behind the formulas and macros. If they change roles or leave the company, it’s that knowledge that disappears, not necessarily the file itself. Access control and change history then depend entirely on whichever storage platform is being used: a plain network share offers neither natively, unlike a properly configured SharePoint or OneDrive space.
Power BI: the false economy
Power BI is a genuinely powerful tool, and it’s often seen as “free” because a Desktop version can be installed straight from the Microsoft Store. In reality, the cost simply moves: you still have to model your data, build your own dashboards, and then maintain them every time your ERP changes. It’s an excellent tool — provided you have someone in-house invested enough to keep it alive over time.
Often it starts out of curiosity, but the employee in charge quickly gets overwhelmed and their original role starts to drift. All the more so once the serious parts arrive: proper data modeling, access management, data security, long-term maintenance — in short, a much wider scope than what that employee originally signed up for.
Google Sheets: collaborative, but not analytical
The cloud version of Excel, Google Sheets brings real value for real-time collaboration on a simple shared tracker. But the structural limits are the same as Excel’s: no real data modeling, performance that degrades as data volume and formula complexity grow, and no analytical layer beyond whatever each person knows how to build with formulas.
What changes with Clairvia
Clairvia isn’t a souped-up spreadsheet or a general-purpose BI tool. It’s a turnkey, sector-specific platform that connects directly to your existing ERP’s data (file export or API).
The difference plays out on four levels:
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Time to value. The platform connects directly to your existing ERP data, with dashboards pre-configured for your trade — no file, no in-house modeling project to build.
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The intelligence layer. This is the real differentiator: every insight comes with a plain-language explanation of why a number moved — price effect, volume effect, product-mix effect, or a discount granted. With the source of every figure always traceable. The goal isn’t to replace a data analyst, but to make steering accessible to someone who doesn’t have one.
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Data security. Raw data is hosted in France, on storage spread across multiple availability zones in Paris. The approach: grow infrastructure resilience at the same pace as the customer base, rather than over-provisioning from day one.
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Access management. Roll out Clairvia to your teams with role-based segmentation — sales management, purchasing, general management — everyone sees what’s relevant to them, instead of the classic single shared file where everyone has access to everything.
In summary
| Excel | Power BI | Google Sheets | Clairvia | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to value | File to build and maintain yourself | Modeling project to run in-house | Collaborative sheet to build yourself | Direct ERP connection, pre-configured dashboards |
| Skills required | None to start, but versioning and access control get complex at scale | Data analyst or FP&A skills | None to start, same limits as Excel at scale | No data skills required |
| What you get | A file, not a steering tool | A tool you still have to build | A shared spreadsheet, not an analytics tool | Explained insights, not just charts |
None of these tools is inherently a bad choice — the real question is who, in your organization, will own the project over time. If the answer is “no one, and that’s exactly the problem,” that’s the use case Clairvia was built for.
Want to compare Clairvia directly against how you currently use Excel, Power BI, or Google Sheets? Request a demo of Clairvia — we connect to your ERP in under an hour and show you your real KPIs on your own data. No commitment, no installation on your end.
Written by Cédric Beaujon, founder of Clairvia. Clairvia supports SMEs in trade, agri-food, and construction with pre-configured dashboards and a proprietary Intelligence Layer.