Defining what Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) does has always been challenging. Most people place FP&A in the Office of the CFO, which makes sense, for many of us have certainly played the role of CFO a time or two. Still, as business partners, strategists and advisors, that is also not necessarily a perfect fit. This categorisation may change as our roles continue to expand to become the central hub of corporate analytics and reporting.
In this blog we explain how companies can efficiently and accurately calculate their personnel requirements.
The digital revolution is not only shaking company business models but also has a direct impact on the finance function. The world is now evolving at a faster pace, and now more than ever before, there is a need to question regularly the long-term strategy. Also, Business Partners need daily support to work on new ideas and to create robust business cases.
Why is strategic partnership important? You might be asking yourself this question when going to a sales meeting, working with another department or attending a company meeting. Strategic partnership is paramount as it allows FP&A teams to spend less time on traditional finance functions like reporting, treasury, tax and investor relations.
I belong to the rather small group of Finance people who also have worked in Human Resources. The four years I headed up HR in the petrochemicals company Borealis was a great experience (after heading up Finance where we kicked out the budget already back in 1995, another great experience!).
The great thing about being in FP&A is that we get to observe in real life and hear stories about many interactions, good and bad, between many colleagues across the business.