The gold rush is a defining part of Silicon Valley. The gold of today is data, and many solutions are rushed to the world market from a small radius around Princeton University. On the other side of the Bay lies the University of California, Berkeley, a place of the Liberal Arts in contrast to the technology-driven Princeton.

The central CPM business model requires multi-dimensional technology. The CPM business model will typically consist of the 7 dimensions.

Driver-based planning (DBP) is an essential part of the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) armoury, enabling organisations – ranging from the smallest non-profit to a multinational – to become quicker, more dynamic and agile in their planning and in responding to internal and external changes in the business environment. 

As we know a simple matter of spotting bias – systematic under or over forecasting – can get surprisingly tricky in practice if our actions are to be guided by scientific standards of evidence – which they need to be if we are actually going to improve matters.

The average level of MAPE for your forecast is 25%. So what? Is it good or bad? Difficult to say. If it is bad, what should you do? Improve…obviously. But how?

The past 5 years have seen significant transformations in the FP&A world. I have been fortunate enough to have travelled extensively and seen these changes. I saw a lot of changes in the FP&A World first-hand: both successful and painful. I met a lot of FP&A professionals – hard working, exciting, inspiring and often burned out.