This really sounds like another case of whats old is new again. In a way, I think it speaks a bit to the obsolecence of what used to be 'systems professionals'

This really sounds like another case of whats old is new again. In a way, I think it speaks a bit to the obsolecence of what used to be 'systems professionals' that things have swung so far into the end user domain. If the finance team (and I have been part of one early in my career at a major conglomerate) is doing essentially the same repetitive analysis on periodic data sets, it is their bad for not reaching out to their systems people for a better way. Those types of reporting can be canned at a much earlier level and output generated/delivered in the desired format directly to the end users. And nothing precludes still making data available for new types of analysis. Excel is great for small operations, ad hoc stuff and just quick and dirty work (a REPL of sorts as others have said). But not as a primary/crucial reporting tool for large operations.