The daily routine of FP&A professionals revolves around providing reports and analyses for senior and operational management, to manage core processes such as budgeting, forecasting, cost allocation and consolidation. And usually they are hard-pressed for time.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson
Thorsteinn has for many years provided consulting and executive training in The Logical Thinking Process methodology for business analysis, improvement and strategy formulation. He now runs an online practitioner training course in the Logical Thinking Process, provided by Marris Consulting in Paris. Thorsteinn is the author of "From Symptoms to Causes – Applying the Logical Thinking Process to an Everyday Problem" and maintains a blog on logical analysis and critical thinking, "The Edge of Reason" (https://thorsteinnsiglaugsson.substack.com).
Thorsteinn has been involved in FP&A for over 20 years. His experience as a consultant, trainer and manager covers business intelligence, planning and budgeting and software development. He has been active in training and development in the field, participated in the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable and has written extensively on planning, budgeting and decision-making. He is a member of the subcommittee on strategy and performance evaluation of the Icelandic Management Society, and chairman from 2020-2023.
Thorsteinn holds a BA degree in philosophy, an MBA from INSEAD and is a certified expert in The Logical Thinking Process.
Author's Articles
Spreadsheets are a great tool to build and maintain ad-hoc calculations, quickly draft a business plan and create good-looking reports. But when it comes to planning and budgeting in a complex business environment the flexibility of spreadsheets is often quick to become an obstacle instead of an asset in your planning process.
When preparing the implementation of a planning and forecasting system I am often asked if we can just take the existing spreadsheet solution and squeeze this into the new system. Invariably my answer is: Yes, we can do this, but we should not. Why?
Increasingly, managers are now looking to change the corporate planning process and replace the traditional annual budget with rolling forecasts, 12, 13 or 15 months ahead. What is the reason for this development?