Less than a quarter of a Financial Analyst’s time is spent with high value-add analysis - this is a finding of a survey run by SAP. Although the survey is 5 years old, it’s still relevant, the percentage may even have shrunk further as the amount of data to be analysed and reported on keeps increasing.

How many of us, when we are asked to a meeting with someone from FP&A, have rolled our eyes, thrown the head back and done a neck roll to relax the shoulders? Why do we have this over whelming feeling of dread when it comes to meeting with that team?

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.

The CEO walks into the CFO’s office and says, “You need to take more ownership of the customer experience and the professional development within and beyond your team. Even a few years’ ago many CFOs would have thought, and some still might think, is that the beginning of a joke?

Framing is how situations are presented to people. How situations are presented affect the decisions that people make. Framing has a role in the work of FP&A practitioners. FP&A practitioners can work through narrow frames.  Narrow frames can appear on income statements through revenues from specific products, executive salaries, and equipment depreciation.

A definition of quality is “a distinctive characteristic possessed by someone.”  The work of FP&A practitioners focuses on thinking and learning about how financial activities – earning revenues, incurring costs, generating cash flows – affect organizations.  The thinking and learning about this relationship require a mindset that creates results.