Working in FP&A during a crisis is extremely challenging but it is also an opportunity to mature processes, reach a stage where FP&A can conduct organizational changes and become a real Business Partner. This article highlights three main areas for FP&A improvement.
By Steve Benham, Co-Founder and Director at Profit& Ltd
Anyone working in the FP&A space knows intermittent disruptions such as the COVID-19 epidemic are the just tip of the iceberg because, at some level or another, every business day is a ‘VUCA’ day and if you invest in building FP&A processes that prove their worth every working day then you’ll be better able to weather a crisis.
By deploying integrated FP&A organisations see greater performance improvements compared with traditional FP&A processes. This is enabled by combining strategic planning, business planning and forecasting and operations planning and forecasting.
Victor Barnes, Global CFO, The McDonald’s Division at The Coca-Cola Company, shared their recent global digital transformation initiative toward one source of truth to improve their processes.
Integrated business planning (IBP) is not a new concept. Yet it’s still hard to find organisations that have fully embraced it, because their efforts have been hampered by the proliferation of legacy systems and data silos. IBP is characterised by aligned planning processes and calendars, full integration of cross-functional data, and cross-functional and business collaboration.
The pressure of globalization and agile decision-making requires companies to improve their business modeling. They must integrate big data in real-time, synthesize that data to identify causal relationships and value-drivers, and ultimately use the findings to make high-impact business decisions.