At the end of the day, FP&A isn’t a technical department. Its role is to develop the operating and financial plan and help the organisation to achieve set goals. It is therefore very important to receive technical support and advice from qualified professionals. This support will be much more helpful if it considers finance and planning specifics. In other words, the technology specialist should be a part of Finance or, even better, the Planning department itself. This role can be called a “Finance Technology Officer” or FTO.

The financial manager must accept that if the plan goes well and is considered excellent, credit goes to the boss. If it goes badly, then the no-decision manager blames the financial manager. The no-decision boss will present the plan as though it is their own and will never reveal that it was prepared by someone else.

This paper, based on our interviews with 25 top FP&A practitioners and thought leaders along with case studies from the largest global network of FP&A people, captures the best practices and new ideas coming out of this fast-growing area.

The webinar was proudly sponsored by:

In this paper, we will explore these different areas to explain what they are, how they have benefited other organisations and the steps an organisation can take in making the transition.

I hope to show the analytical power that is now available to the FP&A practitioner and how it can drive business change in a structured manner; a method that involves considerably less effort than I had to apply all those years ago.