Using AI to Import Strategy Data from a Spreadsheet

A Mexico-based financial organization used AI-assisted importing in BSC Designer to convert strategy spreadsheets into a strategy execution model with clear ownership, KPI logic, permissions, reporting, and evidence workflows.

Key Facts About AI Spreadsheet Import

Have an Excel-based strategic plan or operational scorecard like the one described here? Share your existing planning materials with the BSC Designer team to test how AI-assisted importing can turn them into a connected strategy execution system for KPI tracking, ownership, and reporting before a broader rollout.

Discuss KPI Pilot

Company Profile

The company is a Mexico-based financial organization focused on social finance. It provides savings, credit, cards, ATMs, digital banking, remittances, and related financial services. It serves more than 1.5 million members through 64 branches and employs between 1,001 and 5,000 people. It is one of the largest cooperative financial institutions in the region, with assets above USD 3.7 billion and previously reported annual income of USD 408.1 million.

The Challenge: Moving From Spreadsheets to Sustainable Strategy Implementation

The organization had already built its planning process in Excel. The spreadsheets captured both strategic and operational planning, but the structure was difficult to govern at scale. Here is how the company’s performance measurement officer formulated the need:

“We wanted to move our existing Excel file into the tool without rebuilding everything manually.”

The planning model included separate strategic and operational spreadsheets that were connected. The team needed to decide how the existing structure should work inside dedicated strategy software.

The Excel model did not map cleanly into software logic. For example, it used global weights, meaning each item was weighted against all items in the scorecard; the platform used relative weights, where each item is weighted against other items at the same level. This required interpretation before the data could be imported correctly.

There were some other issues to resolve before importing:

• Unclear Structure. The hierarchy, ownership, permissions, and cross-plan links were not consistent.
• KPI Logic Gaps. Some indicators required correction before they could be used for progress calculations.
• Governance Needs. The organization needed to define who could own, update, approve, and modify each part of the plan.

Due to the overall complexity of the existing strategy model, a direct one-to-one upload was not possible. The team had to interpret and adapt the Excel file first.

The Solution: Using AI to Clean and Structure the Planning Model

The implementation team used AI-assisted importing in BSC Designer to convert the existing spreadsheets into a structured strategy model. The process transformed the plan into objectives, indicators, formulas, descriptions, update frequencies, and responsible users.

“We were thinking not only about importing the plan, but also about who would own and update each part of it.”

The team used a step-by-step workflow based on copy-paste inputs and AI prompts. This allowed the import to be reviewed and refined before approving the final import.

The initial structure was imported in about 10 to 15 minutes. Without AI, the same work would have required a full working day just to match the Excel hierarchy with software fields.

AI was also used to set up the logic of the progress calculation. In Excel, some indicators only tracked the current value, while the optimization direction (maximize or minimize) was implied. In the software, those indicators had to be assigned a specific optimization function. For example, for cost indicators, lower values represent better performance, so the minimization function was assigned by AI.

The practical implementation included:

• AI-Assisted Import. The spreadsheets were converted into structured objectives, KPIs, formulas, descriptions, update frequencies, and owners.
• KPI Normalization. Indicator direction, formulas, update frequencies, and weights were checked by AI so calculations would behave correctly.
• Ownership Assignment. Each data point could be assigned to a responsible user to support accountability.
• Step-by-Step Refinement. The team used AI prompts to review and improve the imported model before finalizing it.

Relevant Video: Importing Strategic Plan with AI

The Results: Faster Setup and More Reliable Reporting

The organization gained more control over strategy execution. The system made update frequency, calculation logic, ownership, and evidence requirements explicit.

AI added most of the value in the form of time savings when importing data: the initial import took about 10 to 15 minutes instead of the full working day normally needed to pre-process a complex planning spreadsheet.

Another tangible improvement was the optimization of ongoing reporting, as update frequencies, ownership, approvals, and evidence requirements were configured once instead of being managed manually within each reporting cycle.

The main outcome: a shift from spreadsheet-based strategy planning to governed strategy execution while preserving the substance of the existing planning model.

AI-assisted import is only one part of a sustainable strategy system. For the broader control model, see how to structure oversight of AI implementation across strategy, KPIs, risks, and human validation.

BSC Designer

BSC Designer is strategy execution software with the Balanced Scorecard at its core. It helps organizations turn strategic plans into a connected strategy architecture by aligning objectives, KPIs, initiatives, risks, and strategy maps in one place. Our strategy implementation system explains how to put strategy into practice, and the strategy execution workshop template helps teams apply it in internal strategy sessions.