Sanity Check

About two weeks ago I was promoted out of the IT Dept, where I was the Lotus Notes Dev-Admin, to work in the profit center, driving the business. What I am finding, which I am positive is not unique to my company, is that the default response to just about any business requirement is to create a new spreadsheet, even for completely non-numerical data like marketing plans, schedules, task lists, and even meeting minutes. Then, what's worse is you're told to go fill in your portion on a dozen spreadsheets stored on a Windows file server with long nested folder hierarchies. Further, these spreadsheets are tweaked and tweaked till they grow out of control where printing them is just a joke and they are not truly usable on-screen either. Its a real problem for me because I cannot take off my Systems hat which causes me to think that everything should be stored in a database where it can be properly managed, access controlled, workflowed, integrated with related data, and reported on. This paragraph in an IBM Cognos brochure sums it up accurately:

With the growing number and complexity of marketing initiatives—especially managing vendor compliance—many chains have turned to a tool they know and trust: the spreadsheet. While spreadsheets may serve as a passable shortterm departmental fix, the widespread use of spreadsheets has effectively sabotaged successful implementation of consolidated, coordinated planning. Spreadsheets exist as pockets of information, typically using local assumptions and leveraging data that is isolated in a silo and seldom up-to-date.

That said, there are certain tasks that even I as a former Lotus Notes developer don't really know how to do in Domino. For example,  take a spreadsheet that has a time line across the top (weeks, quarters, years) and a list of categories along the Y-axis. The data is checkerboarded in the intersecting cells (e.g. under the Christmas week column you list a sale on XYZ product). Horizontal reporting just doesn't work in Notes. So, I am afflicted on one side by spreadsheets galore and on the other side afflicted by the realization that I just can't solve this with Lotus Notes. Or can you?