Businesses exist in order to improve the well-being of others. One approach businesses use for achieving this goal is the concept of people/process/technology. In businesses the element of technology is the responsibility of information technology (IT) departments; information technology is responsible for the acquisition, maintenance, and enhancement of technology. How can information technology improve its ability to acquire, maintain, and enhance technology? An answer is financial planning, thinking about how businesses can accumulate wealth.

How can FP&A partner with the business to enhance enterprise value? By optimising the decision-making process and supporting critical investment decisions, FP&A can drive the business forward.

In the age of metrics and measurement, what are we doing to measure the satisfaction or happiness of those involved in FP&A? When organizations have low employee engagement, they incur additional costs related to the overall drain on productivity, turn-over, etc.., but more importantly companies are missing out on the upside potential to grow and compete based on the creativity, innovation and hard-work invested by an engaged workforce. 

The world is becoming automated and robots are taking over. This is the narrative that has been around for a while and has been promoted as the future, but more than ever, the future is now, and we are seeing the automation of transactional and routine tasks at pace.

Normally, integrating actuals into the planning cycle is not an easy task. Often financial and operating results are spread across multiple databases and actual results and plan detail are at different levels. All of this makes meaningful Performance Evaluation difficult. 

Spreadsheets are a great tool to build and maintain ad-hoc calculations, quickly draft a business plan and create good-looking reports. But when it comes to planning and budgeting in a complex business environment the flexibility of spreadsheets is often quick to become an obstacle instead of an asset in your planning process.