Office 2013 In Depth

Performing a What-If Analysis

Excel provides you with the ability to perform a what-if analysis on worksheet data. An analysis of the data in a worksheet can really be approached in two different ways: manipulating values to affect outcomes or specifying an outcome such as a required net profit, and allowing Excel to determine the values required to give you the desired outcome.

As already mentioned, the first possibility for conducting a what-if analysis consists of varying key values in a worksheet, which enables you to see how these changes to the key values affect the result of a particular formula or function. For example, you might want to analyze how different variable costs, such as marketing and supplies, affect your net profits.

There ...