Most people will agree that planning is a vital activity for every corporate body.  It is often carried out according to a management calendar.  Long-range and resource planning tends to take place on an annual basis, forecasting tends to be quarterly, while reporting is monthly driven. 

Believe it or not, organizations do not collapse if they don’t have a plan or a budget! If a business is already established then two things will impact future results, irrespective of what is planned - organic growth and external influences.

We live in an unpredictable world where the future is uncertain. If it was then we would all make a fortune by making strategic ‘bets’ on certain outcomes. But the world is not like that.

How do you think performance is  measured at the Olympics Games by the teams involved?   The number of gold medals?  The number of world records?

We live in an era with an interconnected global economy, where constant change and uncertainty are taken as a given but planning for such an environment is not easy. Flexible and dynamic financial planning and analysis (FP&A) can help firms to cope.

FP&A goes by many names. In Germany, it is called “Controlling”.  From my previous visits to Germany, I know that German Controllers are different from Accountants: they are forward-looking, analytical and often very technical in their approaches. Recently, I got a great opportunity to learn how FP&A is evolving in Europe’s strongest economy.