On 16th May 2017, 35 senior finance practitioners joined the fourth meeting of the Geneva FP&A Board. The representatives from such leading companies as Duracell, DXC, General Mills, Honeywell, Medtronic, Newell Brands, Nissan, PepsiCo, Procter and Gamble, The Economist, Tesco PLC, etc., gathered to discuss the latest trends in FP&A Business Partnering
Rolling Forecast can become the path leading to better company’s profitability and improved operating performance. This is a popular process in the FP&A world. Many companies tackle the idea of taking it.
One of the more important qualities of FP&A practitioners is curiosity. Curiosity, a strong desire to know or learn something, is affected by the types of questions asked. It is the types of questions that determine how much FP&A practitioners want to know or learn. One type of question is “what.” The purpose of asking “what” is to acquire information. Acquiring information can be in the form of financial numbers like revenues, expenses, and cash flows. Acquiring information can be in the form of non-financial numbers like the amount of time companies receive or make payments. Acquiring information can be in the form of qualitative data like comments from customers, names of products, or types of services provided. Asking “what” helps FP&A practitioners know about the environments where they work but knowing is not enough. FP&A practitioners need to ask questions that help them learn about the environments where they work.
In this blog we will look at the components of a modern solution and why it matters. At the heart of every Analytic application is a mathematically based business model. This model describes the organisation in terms of its relationships between:
It’s difficult to think of a business process that is more unpopular than budgeting. In nearly two decades of writing and talking on the subject, I have yet to come across anyone who is prepared to stand up and say it is a good thing.
Organisations operate in an uncontrollable and often unpredictable business environment, such as market demand, energy, inflation and exchange rates. As a consequence, the role of planning is to help manage what can be controlled to produce outcomes that will achieve organisational objectives, within an uncontrollable and unknowable external environment.