We all have these horror stories where we have all sacrificed our personal lives during this challenging ‘Budget’ season. I guess they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I personally think that there are several ways to make your lives better during this period.

The vast majority of companies still rely on traditional organisational designs characterised by hierarchical structures, and steering with budgets. But these designs are outdated, severely limiting a company's ability to act and respond in today’s fast-changing environments. 

How can organisations operate viably in this age of uncertainty?

One of the biggest barriers for organisations to increase agility comes from unaligned top-down and bottom-up planning processes.

Capital Expense (Capex) plays a major role in the free cash flow situation of most companies. For this reason, it deserves specific attention within corporate processes. This blog reviews how to plan the right Capex level to sustain future enterprise development, design a request and approval process, and control the level of spend.

Building an analytically led organisation, focused on bending the cost curve and reinvesting those savings into opportunities that are earlier on the product lifecycle are key steps to growing and sustaining shareholder value.  No company will continue to grow forever.  In order to stick around, you’ll need to one day start to bend the cost curve. 

Annual Operating Planning is an important activity in many organisations.  Some refer to it as budget season and every organisation has its own nomenclature such as AOP, OB, LRBP, etc. This article covers best practices for a successful planning season, explains what best-in-class organisations do to create a solid annual operating plan and answers three burning questions.