In February 2020, the Dubai FP&A Board gathered for the 7th time to discuss the subject of "Building Winning Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Teams". Lukas Herbert, FP&A Director at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, facilitated the meeting.

Today’s world is characterized by information overload and attention deficit. The amount of data being created, processed, and hence available is exploding. More data was created in the last 2 years than was created since the beginning of humankind. 

The idea of a budget is so core to financial wisdom that it’s one of the first lessons we learnt from our parents for keeping our finances (and lives) on track. Annual Budgeting exercises have been the norm in almost all companies, big and small, across the world for decades. However, in recent years, there has been a lot of news about companies, some very prominent headline-grabbing ones, doing away with their annual budgets and moving to a monthly rolling forecast-based system.

Most professionals working in the FP&A discipline have degrees in finance or accounting and previously worked as accountants or auditors. The transition from such backend core finance functions to a highly business focused partnering function is one that requires certain shifts in mind-set as well as skillset. Below is a discussion attempting to highlight some of the key ones.

Organisations often struggle to find a balance between their long-term strategic objectives and short-term goals. Being a key player in an organization’s strategy setting and budgeting process, FP&A professionals also face this dilemma as a part of their roles.
 

There is hardly any book on human relationships and influence that is as revered as Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. A great many leaders across the world have sworn by and largely benefited from this masterpiece.