In the last years, the digital transformation had an accelerated impact not only on improving customer experience but also on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) processes. This article gives insights into an innovative finance investment controlling project recently created at Zalando. The project is a digital platform and process called internally “Investment App” developed in an agile approach, to supervise large capital expenditures across Zalando business units.
Today, the tools that are being offered are smart enough that with a few inputs and financial insight, you are able to achieve amazing results. No need to be a data scientist to deliver these results. In this article, we discuss Roche's FP&A transformation and how the company started with small experiments before going big.
Irrespective of the industry you work in, I am sure all of you would have noticed a huge change in the way your business operates in the last decade. You may have seen competition from previously unforeseen competitors, your CIOs talking about new digital ways of doing business and the utter lack of ready talent in your teams to manage this new challenge.
As an FP&A leader in your organisation be a gentle guide and rigid challenger. Question decisions made with you or just in your presence. Encourage reliance on financial data, not an exchange of opinions.
On the 27th of January 2021, I had the pleasure of facilitating the second Digital Benelux FP&A board meeting. The subject under discussion was “The Art and Science of Digitised FP&A Business partnering”, delivered by a truly international board panel of 5 members based in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.
There is a lot of hype these days about the concept of FP&A Business Partnering. However, only 25% of FP&A’s time is spent on value-adding activities such as decisions support and business partnering (as per FP&A Trends Survey 2020).