When your financial planning and analysis (FP&A) becomes data-driven using automation and an intuitive platform with the right tools, then there's a fundamental shift. The data flows freely, it's trustworthy, and it starts to work for you. In fact, it can lead to a transformation, especially with decision-making around your organisation's finances and business strategy. But how can you reach this point? 

Data today is being created and consumed at an unprecedented scale. Data science is progressing even faster, further speeding up the rate of data creation and consumption. The companies that are the first to adopt the best practices will gain a significant advantage. The rest might just perish. 

Annual Operating Planning is an important activity in many organisations.  Some refer to it as budget season and every organisation has its own nomenclature such as AOP, OB, LRBP, etc. This article covers best practices for a successful planning season, explains what best-in-class organisations do to create a solid annual operating plan and answers three burning questions.

The KPIs you choose to measure the performance of your business, the KPIs you use in traffic lights, and the gauges in your dashboards drive the efforts of your teams and shape your business. In this article, we explain the strategic role of dashboard design and how to set the right KPIs and benchmarks for your business.

The financial numbers only show one side of the story. When FP&A professionals are presenting the complete story behind the numbers, soft data needs to be collected and incorporated. The big question is, what data and where is it?

Organisations are increasingly adopting data-driven approaches to decision-making. This is natural, given the amount of data we now have on hand. All-in-all, data-driven is now perceived as the right way to do business. If you're doing "data-driven decision making," you're doing it right. But are you really?