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When the world stopped running due to the COVID pandemic, companies had to reorient quickly and understand ‘on the fly’ how the new situation was impacting their activities and how to act to protect the business and employees.

There were many extremes. Some industries were put on hold (like travel, entertainment, gastronomy, etc.) while others flourished and expanded (technology sector, delivery services, biotechnology, pharma, etc.).

But the risk mitigation plans and Scenario Planning of possible future trends were needed for all the above options. It also became very quickly clear that the COVID pandemic was speeding up the adoption of digital technologies and was strongly transforming business in all industries, setting the trends for the future.

The pandemic showed that technology is an important social and economic element. For instance, during the pandemic, it:

• enabled the companies to establish distant working quickly,
• preserved business continuation,
• maintained efficient connections between people, which was so necessary, especially in critical isolation times,
• and supported our FP&A area in managing the urgencies for data deliverables and situation understanding.

Let’s Remember Our Journey through the Pandemic

Having a short flashback, let’s remember some facts with which we all were dealing as the managers and FP&A leads:

1. With all the need for agility and quick reaction, we had to manage the teams where people had a lot of uncertainty and fear, being locked at home but still doing the job.
2. We had to onboard newcomers, explain the complexity of the business, and drive them through analytics specifics by screen sharing.
3. And we had to keep the team spirit and motivation and support the business, despite all challenges.

Looking back and talking to colleagues, we can say that in most cases, our teams and we managed to navigate through all these complexities, still delivering up to expectations and providing strong FP&A support to the organisations.

3 Phases of the Pandemic

But what was the road map of this journey?

There were three main phases of the FP&A dynamics observed during the pandemic period, which I can summarise as outlined below:

• ‘Managing emergencies’: Quick reaction to new requests and needs.
• ‘Normal of not normal’: Settling into the activities related to the new way of working.
• ‘Learn and be ready for the future’: Building the platform for solid business support, resilience, and agility of the function in the quickly changing environment.

1. ‘Managing emergencies’:

Understanding the market environment and validating possible impacts on the organisation were crucial for a quick reaction to new requests and needs. E. g., during the pandemic, we observed the difference in time of hitting the countries and related legal and sanitary rules changes. Analysis of such a situation allowed us to prepare accordingly upfront for some activities in the countries that might be hit next.

Supply chain status validation was important for understanding how our business activities could be impacted in the upcoming weeks.

The key tasks were as follows:

• creating different Scenario Planning and being in close contact with the business,
• intensification of status sharing, 
• updating the risk dashboards more frequently,
• being more selective and precise in the shared analytics and data.

In such a critical situation, the speed of sharing the business status and trends became extremely important. For sure, there were cases when the data sources were not set up perfectly in this phase. The design also needed to be more sophisticated. But what really mattered at this stage was the speed and availability of info, with the selected focus on the critical elements of the business.

2. ‘Normal of not normal’:

Settling the activities to the new way of working period.

This phase is characterised by the reworking, improving, and stabilising of the processes and analytics, which were put in place quickly in the first phase. During this time, the usual perfectionism of FP&A teams came into play with deep validation of data accuracy and improvements in the data flows and systems connections from the first phase. There were needs raised for digital transformation, and as one of the consequences, many companies implemented new planning and analytics tools.

It helped to stabilise the working processes, e.g., to understand better how the pandemic impacts the P&L and working capital. Such analytics allowed more accurate Scenario Planning and validation of different business implications.

Not normal from the first phase was stabilised and improved, becoming normal. We also learned the key criteria for the quick move into this phase, which was, for sure, very helpful for the future.

3. ‘Learn and be ready for the future’:

Building the platform for solid business support, resilience, and agility of the function in the new and quickly changing environment.

The pandemic taught us that any crisis could come unexpectedly and suddenly. It also gave us the key lessons on how to react and what was needed to ensure that the 1st phase of managing emergencies is as short as possible. We also learned how the organisation could quickly move into the ‘Normal of not normal’ management mode.

The key checkpoints for this phase are as follows:

• Understand and validate crisis-sensitive areas in the organisation and have business continuation scenarios with clarity regarding related processes and data. Access to such data and its accuracy should be set up as a standard. Related analytics need to be in place and monitored regularly. With the upcoming emergencies, the frequency of data sharing can be increased, and the scope can be extended, but the base is solidly working then.
   
• Implementing new analytics and planning tools is the key to managing emergencies, as they allow quick, accurate, selective, and aligned data preparation, validation, and sharing. Not only setting the new data standards but also selective analytics and the related self-service will allow a broader understanding of the status and easier access to the needed information.
   
• FP&A team members’ profiles: the pandemic reconfirmed the importance of strong and well-functioning teams. The following qualities of the FP&A team specialists came to shine:

1. Solid technical knowledge – to set up new analytics and reports quickly.

2. Reliable Finance knowledge – to understand the P&L, BS and important KPIs status.

3. Strong analytical skills – to properly validate the situation and its impacts on the organisation and provide meaningful planning scenarios design.

4. Communication skills –to allow stronger cooperation and information exchange between different departments.

5. Good business understanding – to support the activities in place, validate the risks and opportunities, and become the reference point for insights and data understanding.

Consider flexibility as standard. The changing environment requires changing both focus and approach in analytics, processes, and data. Prepare your teams that the changes are necessary and normal. By setting up the processes and analytics, there should already be the mindset for possible quick updates. It means – the base, the systems, and the data alignment should be in place.

• Set up flexible, driver-based scenario modelling tools to support quick validation of possible trends by emerging external or upcoming internal changes. This will help monitor potential impacts and see risks and opportunities for targeted actions.
   
• Increase the main financial KPIs knowledge in the organisation by providing ‘Finance for non-finance’ training. This will help to speak the same language with business and communicate more efficiently, especially in emergency situations.
   
• Develop and maintain a strong cooperation with different areas of the organisation. Ensure a solid understanding of business and organisational setup and dependencies between the departments. This will allow acting quickly, aligned, and efficiently.

Conclusion

The pandemic showed us how quickly the world can change. It taught us to adapt and to react ‘on the fly’. It showed us that there is no stable constant. We know now that uncertainty is the only certainty to come, and the only way to get stability into this uncertainty is to ensure that we are prepared for changes at a high speed.

The new norm is the solidly settled agility and the strength of resilience: in processes, data, tools and mindset.