It’s often been said that we’re in the agile phase of strategic thinking – the stage of strategic thought that focuses on flexibility in planning and rapid, quickly responding iterations - and it really can’t be emphasised enough just how important it is to build a responsive and agile FP&A strategy. It makes all the difference between an efficient and high-performing strategy and one that’s dead in the dust.

In the last years, the digital transformation had an accelerated impact not only on improving customer experience but also on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) processes. This article gives insights into an innovative finance investment controlling project recently created at Zalando. The project is a digital platform and process called internally “Investment App” developed in an agile approach, to supervise large capital expenditures across Zalando business units.

What could Beyond Budgeting mean for your enterprise — and what benefits are available if you move past traditional command-and-control approaches to finance? With the right technology, companies will be better equipped to operate in a more agile way and achieve their financial goals.

Today, the tools that are being offered are smart enough that with a few inputs and financial insight, you are able to achieve amazing results. No need to be a data scientist to deliver these results. In this article, we discuss Roche's FP&A transformation and how the company started with small experiments before going big.