FP&A Trends

By Stefan Spiegel, CFO SBB Cargo AG, former Head Controlling of Retail Division of Swiss Post 2017

In the period from 2001 to 2006, the Retail division of Swiss Post transformed itself from a public service company into a business-driven sales organization. Crucial drivers of change were, on the one hand, the adaptation of the steering systems up to the final implementation of a "Beyond Budgeting" philosophy and, on the other hand, a humanistic attitude of management and finance department against all employees. The success was amazing: The division succeeded in increasing the sales of new retail products from 0 to over 400 million CHF, optimizing the bottom line by more than 100 million CHF or more than 5 percentage points and becoming the first state-owned company in Switzerland to win the EFQM- Award for Business Excellence.

By Bjarte Bogsnes, Vice President Performance Management Development at Statoil

The world of management is full of myths and rituals. Many seem to have been with us forever, often explained and justified as “we have always done it like this”. Some have a shorter history, often introduced because “everybody else is doing it”.

FP&A Soft Skills: the Differentiator between a Good  and an Effective Business Partner

--Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

• In this episode of the FP&A Trends Video Series,  Hyder Hasan, Global Finance Director at PureCircle and a member of the FP&A Board in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), shares his thoughts on the importance FP&A soft skills. The soft skills are the differentiating factor between a good business partner and an effective business partner. 

• The core point which most of the finance people miss out in a Finance Business Partnering assignment is to take off their FINANCE HAT and wear their BUSINESS PARTNER’S HAT. In a Finance Business Partnering assignment finance people should not consider themselves as part of the Finance department, but part of their business partner’s department. Finance people should take their business partner’s agenda, as their own agenda and their business partner’s targets as their own targets.

A groundbreaking survey designed to benchmark current and emerging trends relative to how companies are leveraging technology and empowering FP&A professionals to unlock the strategic value of FP&A.

The role of the CFO is changing: It’s moving away from compliance and optimization, towards a more strategic; customer facing disruptive role. But how empowered are their FP&A teams to support them in this new world?
The goals of this survey are to identify and analyze current and emerging trends in modern Financial Planning and Analytics.

By Chris Ortega, MBA, Sr. Finance Manager at Emarsys, USA

What ignited this article? I was talking with some upcoming college graduates from a similar background as myself. They were looking to go into corporate finance/financial planning & analysis (FP&A) after graduating from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. I shared with them lessons I learned from 10 years in the finance game. Why is this important to you?  In discussing with them and seeing their reaction/feedback it was clear others could see value in my perspective. 

So, here are my Top 5 lessons learned in the first 10 years of my professional career.