The New Normal means that planning is no longer an extrapolation of the past. Similarly, business drivers that worked last year may no longer be relevant for the future. The reality is that organizations face multiple possible futures. Each one can be triggered by a crisis or an unforeseen event that will require the company to adjust or even change course.

So how should FP&A adapt to this New Normal?

As Einstein said, “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”  This survey we believe offers hope, insight, and a much-needed reality check on where FP&A is today.  It also forecasts what needs to happen for FP&A teams to develop their best practices from theory into reality. 

In this 7-minute presentation, Stefan Spiegel, CFO at Swiss Railway Freight Logistics (SBB Cargo AG), explains his company's journey towards merging finance and operations.

In today’s world, companies need more than ever fast insights to make the appropriate critical moves. Unfortunately, current BI tools through dashboards report ‘what’ happened and does not help to understand the ‘why’.

FP&A function is changing rapidly together with our world. xP&A means “Extended Planning & Analysis” and is now slowly taking place of the traditional FP&A. FP&A Business Partnering Maturity Model as below is showing us three stages of different aspects of core FP&A competencies. xP&A is covered under the "Leading State" column. 

This article summarises the presentations and discussions during the recent Digital FP&A Circle on how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has reduced the process burden, increased the speed to insights, and ultimately supported improved decision-making at Konica Minolta and Amazon.