Earlier this month I attended the fourth FP&A Board event in San Francisco focused on trends in driver-based and predictive FP&A. Finance professionals from an array of industries across the Bay Area attended to learn about this timely and important topic.
The fourth Seattle FP&A Board, which was sponsored by SAP and Robert Half, was devoted to the subject of Driver Based and Predictive FP&A. FP&A as a function has for such a long time been a traditional function relying on drivers.
On 21st May 2019, 35 senior finance professionals gathered in the heart of Geneva for discussing “Power of FP&A Predictive Analytics”. Two days later there was a Zurich FP&A Board meeting which was devoted to the same subject.
We live in a Digital World today, with nearly everything interconnected with each other. Yet many individuals, companies and organisations seek their own ways and explore how to leverage data in the area of Financial Planning and Analysis.
These are exciting times for finance. The promise of technology for a sneak peek into the future gives finance a crystal ball on where to steer resources today for an optimal utilization tomorrow. Can the Arabic proverb “he who knows the future lies even if he is proven correct” be overcome?
Prediction is an important work that FP&A practitioners do. This work has many challenges. One way to address these challenges is by maximizing the positive. There are three steps in maximizing the positive.