The current world is full of dead budgets and unrealistic forecasts, and FP&A teams need to adapt quickly to prepare for the future. At the first Digital Pan-Asian FP&A Board, senior finance practitioners from large organisations shared their insights on a variety of topics.

A proper financial model that provides quick answers to different changes will help you make your life in planning more successful. 

If FP&A professionals previously thought we had a tough job, the new reality of a very different world after COVID-19 will make our previous issues seem like a walk in the park. Where should we focus our efforts, and how can we provide the businesses with the best ways to move forward?

Traditional forecasts and plans typically use single-point estimates and metrics with little or no discussion of risks & opportunities (R&O), and without showing correlations among multiple R&O that could have a major impact on performance. R&O adjusted forecasting and planning is an approach to forecasting that generates a range of possible outcomes and probabilities based on an analysis of multiple variables of R&O.

Scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis and what-if analysis are very similar concepts and are really only slight variations of the same thing. All are very important components of financial modelling – in fact, being able to run sensitivities, scenarios and what-if analysis is often the whole reason the model was built in the first place.

Most recently, I have been observing significant changes in business models in many organisations around the globe.  

Many FP&A Board members say the future can no longer be predicted based on only historical data since we are living in an environment of “Unknown Unknowns”.