There's a direct excel to magento upload tool that we use, think it is still in beta though. There's also an automated version which cleans and maps, a graphical drag drop version, then a complete pim version with the same via external product management and inline image editing, all sync to Magento. Each increases the number of products a person can maintain, whether it is onetime upload or constant inventory management and so on. You also have the internal upload tool or Magmi but they are not business friendly so depends if you have tech resource available.