Arrows can guide the attention of the audience to a particular area of the chart like the example below which emphasizes the fact that sales has been steadily increasing despite the setback due to the COVID 19 pandemic in 2021.

1. Highlight the range A1:B10 and then, on the Insert tab, in the Charts group, click Insert Column or Bar Chart > Clustered Column. The chart should look like this:

Next, we need to prepare the setup for the arrow. For that we'll use scatterplots.

2. Enter the following labels "Year", and "Arrow" in cells D1 and D3 respectively.
3. Enter the following formulas in the respective cells:
F1 --> 2021
F2 -->  = MATCH(F1,A2:A10)
E3 --> = INDEX(B2:B10,E3) + 4.5
F3 -->  = INDEX(B2:B9,E3) + 6

The worksheet should look like this:

4. Next, select cell E3, press Ctrl + C to copy the cell into the clipboard, then select the chart and press Ctrl + V to paste the data into the chart. The chart should look like this:

5.Right-click the Series2 data series in the chart and then, on the shortcut menu, click Change Series Chart Type.
6. In the Change Chart Type dialog box click on Combo. Under the Choose the chart type and axis for your data series set the Chart Type to Clustered Column for the Sales data series and Scatter for the Series2 data series. Next, uncheck their Secondary Axis check boxes as per the below screenshot:

8. On the worksheet, right-click the chart and then, on the shortcut menu, click Select Data.
9. Next, In the Select Data Source dialog box, select Series2 and click on the Edit button under Legend Entries (Series).
10. In the Edit Series dialog box, refer to cell D3 in the Series name edit box.
11. Next, edit the Series X values to refer to the range E3 and the Series Y values to refer to the range F3. Press the Ok button to close the Edit Series dialog box.
12. Press the Ok button to close the Select Data Source dialog box and the chart should look like this:

Lets do some cleaning.

13. Delete the horizontal gridlines and the vertical axis.
14. Turn off the border of the Chart Area by setting its Shape Outline to No line.
15. Next, select the horizontal axis and set its Shape Outline, under the Format tab, to Black and its Weight to 1.5 pt..
16. Change the chart font to Trebuchet MS, its color to black and size to 9.
17. Change the fill color of the Sales data series to light blue and its Gap Width to 50%. The chart should look like this:

18. On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click Shapes. From the dropdown menu click on the Arrow Down icon. Click anywhere in the worksheet, and then drag to place the shape.
19. While the shape is still selected, click Shape Fill in the Shape Styles group, and under Theme Colors, pick the color you want (Dark red in our case).
20. Click Shape Outline in the Shape Styles group, and select No Outline.
21. In the Size group, adjust the Height and Width to 0.3" and 0.4" respectively, and the shape on the worksheet should look like this:

Let’s build this chart in Excel.

The dataset for the graphic above is in the range A2:B10 as shown in the screenshot below.

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22. Select the arrow shape on the worksheet and press Ctrl + C to copy the shape to the clipboard. In the chart select the Series "Arrow" and press Ctrl + V to paste the shape into the chart. The chart should look like this:

Thank you for reading, and I hope you found this useful. If you have any questions, find me on Twitter and ask me anything.

7.Press the Ok button to close the Change Chart Type dialog box and the chart should look like this:

23. In the chart, right-click the Sales data series, and on the shortcut menu select Add Data Labels.
24. Select the newly added data labels and set their font to Bold.
25. Finally add the chart title and data source, adjust the size of the chart and the chart should look like this:

You’ll notice that the chart is dynamic and can adjust automatically. Try it. Replace year 2021 in cell F1 with 2017. As expected, the chart will adjust and will look like this: