Businesses exist in order to improve the well-being of others.  One approach businesses use for achieving this goal is the concept of people/process/technology.  In businesses the element of people is the responsibility of human resources; human resources is responsible for the acquisition, compensation, and teaching of people.  How can human resources improve its ability to acquire, compensate, and teach people?  An answer is financial planning, thinking about how businesses can accumulate wealth.

You don’t have to go far to read something about a failed Merges and Acquisitions (M&A) transaction. One that comes to mind is the Sears-Kmart transaction which is cratering as we speak. It’s been called “the greatest destruction of retail value in history.” Remember the mega-merger between Kraft and Heinz? The New York Times recently called it a mega-mess. Oh, and that includes its accounting – I will talk more about that below.

Today’s FP&A practitioners are highly trained professionals with a greater ability to see the big picture, analyse and interpret data, and build predictive models. They are also experts in harnessing the power of information technology. They are able to create detailed cost and revenue databases that unlock patterns and trends in business behaviour and to build sophisticated and responsive forecasting models. We do rolling forecasts because we know they are better and because we can.

This edition of our digest brings you articles covering the soft skills of an FP&A professional, methods to improve your P&L statements and the reality behind an FP&A department’s role in problem solving and risk management. We will also share with you an amazing case study about FP&A transformation in Nielsen.