This user's request is a perfect illustration of how traditional spreadsheets force you to work like a librarian instead of a strategist. The problem isn't that the data is scattered across workbooks for the USA, UK, and Dubai. The problem is that the tool itself has no native sense of relationship between those workbooks. You have to manually copy a name from one sheet to another, or build a fragile macro that breaks the moment someone changes a column header. That is not a workflow. That is maintenance disguised as work.
What this user is really asking for is a living connection between data sets. They want the name they type into the "USA Accounts" workbook to automatically appear in the master contact workbook. In a traditional spreadsheet, that requires either a complex formula referencing external files (which often fails when files are moved or renamed) or a custom VBA script that runs every time a cell changes. Both solutions are brittle and require a level of technical knowledge that most spreadsheet users do not have and should not need. The user even apologizes for the complexity of their request, as if wanting data to flow automatically is an unreasonable ask. It is not.
The practical answer here is that this task is trivial in a system designed for relational data. An AI-native spreadsheet or a proper database can treat each workbook as a table and each contact name as a key. When you add a name in any account workbook, a simple rule or lookup can populate the master contact sheet instantly, no formulas, no macros, no apology required. The technology exists. The barrier is that most spreadsheet tools still think like paper ledgers, not like connected platforms. The user should not have to be surprised by Excel's capabilities; they should expect them to work the way their brain does.
Our opinion is clear: stop building workarounds. If you are manually consolidating contact lists from multiple workbooks, you are spending time that could be spent on the accounts themselves. The solution is not a better formula. It is a tool that understands that a contact name in one place is the same person in another place. That is not a feature request. It is a baseline expectation for any modern data tool. The user's question is not complicated. The fact that it feels complicated is exactly the problem we are here to solve.