Irrespective of the industry you work in, I am sure all of you would have noticed a huge change in the way your business operates in the last decade. You may have seen competition from previously unforeseen competitors, your CIOs talking about new digital ways of doing business and the utter lack of ready talent in your teams to manage this new challenge.

FP&A teams are skilled at pulling data from various information systems, manipulating it, and gathering insights. Although FP&A plays a crucial role in supporting companies in becoming more intelligent, there is a lot to think about when getting ready for big data and the FP&A transformation journey. Below are a few things to consider. This list will continue to evolve as we all learn from each other. 

What does winning as an FP&A Team mean? A common problem for the FP&A team occurs when the information provided is not used or valued in the decision-making process. Setting up the FP&A team correctly will help alleviate this problem and optimize your FP&A team’s influence. This article will examine how Gallagher has set up its FP&A team to win. 

Every FP&A professional has an active role to play in business partnering, supporting the leadership team to aid decision making. To enable this, the FP&A team must be positioned to inform the future impact of decisions that are being made now. This requires understanding what the company’s strategy is, where the company is heading, what part your business unit/function play to get there and what are the KPIs on which they are being measured.

The CFO is commonly considered to be the sparring partner to the company CEO. Traditionally this implies a physical vicinity of the finance department to the CEO. However, during my career, I have found more and more finance organisations where remote working is prevalent. I can identify three models.

As an FP&A leader in your organization be a gentle guide and rigid challenger. Question decisions made with you or just in your presence. Encourage reliance on financial data, not an exchange of opinions.