Chapter 15

Chapter 15: From Excel to the Deck - Turning Financial Analysis Into Judge-Friendly Evidence

"Excel is where you prove it. The presentation is where you communicate it."

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

determine which financial analysis belongs in the presentation
convert complex Excel analysis into simple visual evidence
select the most important financial metrics
design financial slides around insights rather than calculations
simplify numbers without losing meaning
connect charts and tables directly to your recommendation
communicate assumptions clearly
avoid common financial presentation mistakes
create financial slides that are easy for judges to understand
move from a detailed financial model to a concise executive-level story

Why This Matters

Case teams often spend hours building financial models.

They calculate:

ratios
forecasts
budgets
market sizes
ROI
NPV
IRR
valuation
scenarios
sensitivities
cash flows

Then they put as much of it as possible into the presentation. That is usually a mistake.

The purpose of the presentation is not to demonstrate how much analysis your team completed.
The purpose is to demonstrate why your recommendation is the best decision.

Your Excel model may contain hundreds of cells. Your financial section may need only three or four slides. That isn't a problem. It is the point.

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

The best financial presentation is not the one that shows the most analysis. It is the one that makes the most important analysis easiest to understand.

Excel and PowerPoint Have Different Jobs

Think of the two tools as serving different purposes.

Excel

Excel is where you:

explore
calculate
test
compare
model
estimate
stress-test
investigate
make mistakes
change assumptions
discover relationships

Excel is your thinking environment.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint is where you:

communicate
prioritize
explain
persuade
simplify
highlight
connect
recommend

PowerPoint is your communication environment.

The Model → Insight → Slide Pipeline

A useful way to think about financial presentation development is:

DATA

↓

MODEL

↓

ANALYSIS

↓

INSIGHT

↓

IMPLICATION

↓

VISUAL

↓

MESSAGE

↓

DECISION

Your presentation should normally begin around the insight rather than the data.

The Common Team Mistake

Many teams follow this process:

Build Excel

↓

Take screenshot

↓

Put screenshot into PowerPoint

↓

Explain the spreadsheet

This creates a presentation that looks like a spreadsheet.

Instead:

Build Excel

↓

Identify insight

↓

Determine message

↓

Choose visual

↓

Build slide

↓

Explain implication

This creates a presentation that looks like a business decision.

What Should Stay in Excel?

Not everything you calculate needs to appear in the presentation.

Keep detailed calculations in Excel when they are primarily used for:

checking assumptions
validating estimates
exploring alternatives
calculating ratios
testing scenarios
supporting potential Q&A
confirming financial feasibility
building confidence in the model

The judges don't need to see every step.

But you need to understand every important step.

The "Show Your Work" Trap

Students are often taught that they need to show their work.

That is useful in a classroom.

Case competitions are different.

Judges aren't grading whether you included every calculation.

They are evaluating whether your recommendation is:

logical
supported
realistic
financially viable
strategically sound

You should therefore show enough evidence to establish credibility without overwhelming the audience.

What Should Move to the Deck?

Financial analysis belongs in the presentation when it does one of four things.

1. Establishes the problem

Example:

Profit margins have declined from 18% to 11%.

2. Supports the opportunity

Example:

The serviceable market represents a $180M opportunity.

3. Proves the recommendation works

Example:

The initiative generates a $5.2M NPV.

4. Demonstrates robustness

Example:

NPV remains positive even when adoption is 20% below forecast.

If the analysis doesn't do one of these things, question whether it belongs in the deck.

The Three-Question Slide Test

Before putting a financial visual on a slide, ask:

Question 1

What does this show?

Question 2

Why does it matter?

Question 3

What should the judge conclude?

If you cannot answer all three, the visual probably needs work.

Choosing the Right Financial Visual

Different financial questions require different visuals.

Use a Bar Chart When:

You are comparing:

alternatives
years
competitors
products
scenarios

Example:

NPV by Strategic Alternative

Use a Line Chart When:

You are showing:

trends
growth
declining margins
cash flow over time
market growth

Example:

Revenue Growth Over Five Years

Use a Waterfall When:

You want to explain how you get from one financial result to another.

For example:

Revenue

↓

Variable Costs

↓

Fixed Costs

↓

Operating Profit

A waterfall can be especially effective for explaining the economics of a recommendation.

Use a Sensitivity Table When:

You need to demonstrate how an outcome changes under different assumptions.

For example:

NPV by Growth Rate and Discount Rate

But remember:

The table is evidence.

The insight is the message.

Use a Simple Number When:

One number tells the story.

For example:

$5.2M

NPV

28%

IRR

3.1×

Return Multiple

Large numbers can be extremely powerful when properly contextualized.

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

Choose the visual that makes the insight obvious—not the visual that makes the analysis look sophisticated.

The One-Message Visual

Every financial visual should have one primary job.

Suppose your analysis shows:

Revenue ↑
Profit ↑
Margin ↓

Don't simply title the slide:

Financial Performance

Instead, make the message:

Revenue growth is strong, but declining margins are limiting profit growth.

Then use the visual to demonstrate that relationship.

Insight-Based Titles

Your title should tell the audience what they are supposed to understand.

Weak

ROI Analysis

Better

The Initiative Generates a 32% ROI

Stronger

The Initiative Generates a 32% ROI and Recovers Its Investment Within Two Years

The strongest version provides interpretation.

Financial Slide Architecture

A simple structure works extremely well.

Headline

The insight.

Evidence

The chart, table, or key numbers.

Assumptions

The critical inputs.

Implication

What the evidence means for the recommendation.

For example:

Headline

The investment creates significant value while remaining resilient to downside risk.

Evidence

NPV:

Base Case — $5.2M

Downside — $2.1M

Upside — $8.4M

Key Assumption

Customer adoption.

Implication

Proceed with the investment while monitoring adoption monthly.

The Financial Slide Should Answer a Question

Rather than asking:

What financial information should we put here?

Ask:

What question does this slide answer?

For example:

Slide Question

Is the company financially healthy enough to pursue this strategy?

Use:

liquidity
profitability
leverage
cash flow

Slide Question

How large is the opportunity?

Use:

TAM
SAM
SOM
growth rates

Slide Question

Can we afford the recommendation?

Use:

investment
budget
funding requirements
cash flow

Slide Question

Does the investment create value?

Use:

Slide Question

How confident are we in the result?

Use:

sensitivity
scenarios
downside cases
break-even analysis

This approach makes slide selection much easier.

From Model to Message: Example

Suppose your Excel model contains:

initial investment: $3M
annual revenue: $4M
operating costs: $2.5M
annual cash flow: $1.5M
NPV: $5.2M
IRR: 28%
ROI: 64%
break-even: 2.1 years
downside NPV: $1.8M
upside NPV: $8.7M

You could put all of this on one slide.

But you probably shouldn't.

Instead, identify the most important message:

The investment generates attractive returns and remains value-creating under downside assumptions.

Then show:

$5.2M

NPV

28%

IRR

2.1 years

Payback

And perhaps a small sensitivity visual.

The rest remains available in Excel for Q&A.

Financial Numbers Need Context

A number without context is often meaningless.

Consider:

$5.2M NPV

Is that good?

It depends.

$5.2M could be:

enormous for a small company
insignificant for a multinational
attractive relative to the investment
unattractive relative to the risk

Instead, add context.

For example:

$5.2M NPV on a $3M investment

Or:

$5.2M NPV represents 8% of current enterprise value

Context turns a number into meaning.

Relative Measures Are Powerful

Financial numbers often become more useful when expressed relative to something.

Examples:

Investment

$3M

↓

2% of annual revenue

Savings

$4M

↓

15% reduction in operating costs

NPV

$5.2M

↓

1.7× initial investment

Market

$180M

↓

12% of the company's current addressable market

These comparisons help judges understand scale quickly.

Make Large Numbers Readable

Long numbers create unnecessary cognitive load.

Instead of:

$9,900,000

consider:

$9.9M

Instead of:

$90,000

consider:

$90K

The goal is not to hide precision.

The goal is to communicate the appropriate level of precision.

Precision Should Match the Evidence

Don't present:

$9,873,412.83

when your underlying assumptions are rough estimates.

That creates false precision.

If your market estimate is based on several assumptions, you may be better off presenting:

≈ $9.9M

~$10M

The level of precision should reflect the quality of your information.

Assumptions Belong Beside the Number

One of the biggest credibility killers is presenting a financial projection without explaining where it came from.

Suppose you say:

$12M incremental revenue

The obvious question is:

How?

Your slide should make the logic visible.

For example:

120,000 customers

$100 annual revenue

$12M incremental revenue

Now the judge can see the logic.

Build From Drivers

Whenever possible, show the financial drivers rather than simply presenting the final number.

For example:

Revenue

Customers × Price × Frequency

Cost Savings

Units × Savings per Unit

Market Size

Customers × Average Spend

Profit

Revenue – Variable Cost – Fixed Cost

Investment Return

Cash Flow – Investment

This allows judges to understand how your number was created.

The Unit Economics Principle

Large numbers can feel abstract.

Breaking them into units often makes them more credible.

For example:

Instead of:

$100M savings opportunity

show:

$5 savings per transaction × 20M transactions = $100M

Or:

$50K savings per location × 2,000 locations = $100M

The unit economics make the estimate easier to evaluate.

The "Could I Explain This?" Test

For every major financial number, ask:

Could I explain where this number came from if a judge challenged me?

If the answer is no:

Go back to the model.

Find the driver.

Document the assumption.

Understand the calculation.

Then put the appropriate amount of evidence into the presentation.

Don't Confuse Complexity With Credibility

A complicated model doesn't automatically create a credible recommendation.

In fact, unnecessary complexity can reduce credibility.

Judges should be able to understand:

what you assumed
why you assumed it
what the result is
how sensitive it is
why the result matters

They don't need to understand every Excel formula.

What Judges Often Want to Know

When judges see financial projections, they are often thinking:

"Where did that number come from?"

"Is that realistic?"

"Is the investment large enough to matter?"

"What happens if you're wrong?"

"How long before we see results?"

"What is the return?"

"What is the biggest risk?"

"Could the company actually afford this?"

"Why is this better than the alternatives?"

Design your financial slides so that these questions are anticipated.

The Judge-Friendly Financial Slide

A strong slide often allows the judge to understand the following within seconds:

What is the result?

How large is it?

Why should I believe it?

What does it mean?

That is the standard.

Financial Slide Sequence

A financial section can often follow this structure:

Slide 1 — Current Financial Position

Where are we now?

Show the most important financial strengths, weaknesses, and trends.

Slide 2 — Financial Opportunity

What could change?

Show market opportunity, revenue opportunity, savings opportunity, or other economic potential.

Slide 3 — Investment Economics

Does the recommendation create value?

Show:

investment
cash flow
ROI
NPV
IRR

Use only the metrics that matter.

Slide 4 — Risk and Sensitivity

How robust is the recommendation?

Show:

scenarios
sensitivity
break-even
critical assumptions

Slide 5 — Financial Implication

What does all of this mean?

Connect the analysis directly to the recommendation.

Not every case requires five slides.

The point is to think in terms of questions and decisions.

Financial Analysis Should Not Become a Separate Universe

A common presentation problem looks like this:

Strategy Team

Finance Team

"Now here's our financial analysis."

The two sections don't appear connected.

Instead:

Strategy

Customers want the product.

↓

Operations

The organization can deliver it.

↓

Finance

The economics work.

↓

Risk

The economics remain viable under reasonable downside assumptions.

↓

Recommendation

Launch the product.

The financial analysis becomes evidence supporting the same decision.

The "So What?" Discipline

After every financial slide, ask:

So what?

If your answer is:

"It shows our NPV."

That's not enough.

Try again.

"It shows the project creates value."

Better.

Try again.

"It shows the project creates value even under conservative assumptions, which supports proceeding with a phased launch."

Now you have the implication.

Coach's Lens

When coaching teams, one of the most useful questions you can ask after every financial slide is:

"If I remember only one thing from this slide, what should it be?"

The team should be able to answer immediately.

If they give you three answers, the slide probably has too many messages.

If they give you none, the slide probably doesn't have enough purpose.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1 — Screenshotting Excel

Excel is not a presentation tool.

Mistake 2 — Too many numbers

More numbers create more cognitive load.

Mistake 3 — No context

A number without scale or comparison is difficult to interpret.

Mistake 4 — False precision

Detailed numbers based on rough assumptions create unnecessary skepticism.

Mistake 5 — No assumptions

Judges need to understand how major numbers were generated.

Mistake 6 — Showing calculations instead of insights

The calculation is evidence.

The insight is the message.

Mistake 7 — Using every financial metric

ROI, NPV, IRR, payback, ROIC, EBITDA margin, and dozens of ratios may all be available.

That doesn't mean they all belong on the slide.

Mistake 8 — Separating financial analysis from strategy

Finance should help answer the strategic question.

Mistake 9 — No downside case

A single optimistic forecast creates skepticism.

Mistake 10 — Making judges calculate

Don't make the audience work to find the insight.

Mad Skills Drill

The Excel-to-Slide Challenge

Take one completed financial model.

You have 10 minutes.

Your task:

Step 1

Identify the three most important financial insights.

Step 2

Write one sentence explaining each.

Step 3

Choose one visual for each insight.

Step 4

Create three slide headlines.

Step 5

Reduce the model to those three slides.

Step 6

Explain the financial story in 60 seconds.

Your goal is not to show everything you know.

Your goal is to communicate what matters.

Team Exercise

The Financial Translation Challenge

Give each team member the same financial model.

Ask them independently to identify:

the most important number
the most important insight
the biggest assumption
the biggest risk
the most important implication

Compare the answers.

If everyone identifies something different, the team probably hasn't agreed on the financial story.

A Useful Financial Slide Checklist

Before finalizing your deck, ask:

Message

☐ Does the slide have one clear message?

☐ Is the title insight-based?

Evidence

☐ Does the visual prove the message?

☐ Are the numbers accurate?

☐ Are the calculations supported by the model?

Context

☐ Is scale clear?

☐ Are units clear?

☐ Are comparisons meaningful?

Assumptions

☐ Are important assumptions visible?

☐ Are they realistic?

Decision

☐ Does the slide explain why the information matters?

☐ Does it support the recommendation?

Design

☐ Can the judge understand it quickly?

☐ Is unnecessary information removed?

☐ Are numbers appropriately formatted?

The Financial Story Test

Stand back from your entire financial section.

Can you answer these five questions?

1. Where are we now?

2. What is the financial opportunity or problem?

3. What will our recommendation cost?

4. What value will it create?

5. What happens if our assumptions are wrong?

If the answer to all five is clear, your financial section is probably doing its job.

Chapter Summary

Your financial model and your financial presentation have different purposes.

Excel allows you to explore complexity.

The presentation requires you to simplify that complexity into a decision-ready story.

The process should therefore be:

Model

↓

Analyze

↓

Identify Insights

↓

Prioritize

↓

Visualize

↓

Communicate

↓

Decide

The best financial slides don't attempt to reproduce the spreadsheet.

They extract the most important evidence from the spreadsheet and make that evidence easy to understand.

Key Takeaways

✓ Excel is for analysis; the deck is for communication.

✓ Don't screenshot your spreadsheet and call it a financial slide.

✓ Build the story before building the slide.

✓ Every financial slide should answer a question.

✓ Every visual should have a clear purpose.

✓ Use insight-based titles.

✓ Show the numbers that support the decision—not every number you calculated.

✓ Provide context for important financial figures.

✓ Use appropriate precision.

✓ Make important assumptions visible.

✓ Break large numbers into understandable drivers when appropriate.

✓ Use unit economics to make estimates more credible.

✓ Anticipate the questions judges are likely to ask.

✓ Keep detailed analysis available for Q&A.

✓ Don't confuse complexity with credibility.

✓ Don't make judges calculate the insight themselves.

✓ Connect financial analysis directly to strategy.

✓ The financial section should strengthen the recommendation, not become a separate technical presentation.

Your job isn't to show the judges everything you calculated. Your job is to show them enough to believe your decision.

Looking Ahead

Once the financial story has been translated from Excel into the presentation, one final challenge remains.

The numbers must survive scrutiny.

Judges may challenge:

your assumptions
your market size
your costs
your revenue projections
your discount rate
your valuation
your sensitivity analysis
your interpretation of the financial results

A strong financial section therefore requires more than a polished slide.

It requires defensible analysis.

The next chapter moves into that challenge:

Can you defend the numbers when the judges start asking questions?

That is where financial analysis becomes financial confidence.