In this series of 9 blogs, we will be looking at a number of areas that FP&A departments must address if they are to add value to the organisations they serve in this technology-driven age. This blog covers the role of the FP&A Analyst.

As FP&A leaders, we need to enable our teams to find time and opportunities to develop their ability to craft the story, create business relationships and be comfortable eliciting their feedback. It will take time, but it is time well spent.

One of the largest privately owned companies in the world, Cargill’s FP&A journey started around 6 years ago. But, as the company’s Global Finance Director – Cocoa and Chocolate emphasises in a short video, this journey never really ends.

For anyone unfamiliar, a financial model is a tool used to reflect the economics of a business scenario that can be used to track, monitor, and predict a company's financial performance. Financial modelling is a critical skill for all finance professionals as it teaches them the business and the critical business cause-and-effect drivers.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said that "the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." The origin of this sentence can be traced to Theodore Parker who was a Unitarian minister and prominent American Transcendentalist born in 1810. Parker called for the abolition of slavery in the USA in an 1853 collection of “Ten Sermons of Religion”.

So, what does this have to do with the mission of the Profitability Center of Excellence (PACE)? Plenty.

xP&A is more than an attempt to ‘fix’ the planning process. It is a complete transformation of the FP&A function to continually challenge the status quo, to educate, shape and influence management decisions on how the organization achieves its goals.