FP&A Insights

FP&A Insights is a collection of useful case studies from leading international companies and thought leadership insights from FP&A experts. We aim to help you keep track of the best practices in modern FP&A, recognise changes in the ever-evolving world of financial planning and analysis and be well equipped to deal with them.

Stay tuned for more blogs and articles from great authors.

How to Become an FP&A Professional
FP&A Tags:
What is FP&A, FP&A Skills, FP&A People

By Simone da Silva Collins, Senior Financial Analyst at Sony

Simone da Silva Collins is an FP&A professional working in Polycom, an industry leader in unified collaboration solutions.

She provides business partnering to various departments of Polycom in EMEA. She was previously the Group Finance Analyst supporting the Executive Team at Intec (now part of CSG), a provider of Business Support System (BSS) software and related services, primarily for the telecommunications industry. She also worked for Telewest (now part of Virgin Media) for over 7 years providing commercial and financial support to the Interconnect team.

Simone is originally from Macau in SE Asia. She gained her Masters at Manchester Business School. She has also recently achieved FP&A accreditation.

Have you thought of becoming an FP&A professional? When I was studying for my accounting qualification, I assumed I would become a traditional accountant. I did not know then how wrong this assumption would prove to be. This article gives an insight to my path in becoming an FP&A professional and short guide on how to become one.

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London FP&A Board: FP&A Analytics Maturity Model
FP&A Tags:
FP&A Board Meetings Insights

By Larysa Melnychuk, CEO and Founder at FP&A Trends Group and International FP&A Board

The future is unpredictable, the current business environment is harsh, competition is fierce. In these times of change, modern FP&A is both exciting and challenging. It is exciting because it utilises better and more sophisticated tools than previously, can embrace automation and the incredible power of online collaboration. However, it is difficult because old finance management practices are still alive: they are inadequate for the modern world.

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The Most Useless Visualisation Ever
FP&A Tags:
Data Visualisation, FP&A Storytelling

By Randall Bolten, longtime Silicon Valley CFO, author of "Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You” and adjunct professor at U.C. Berkeley Extension.

RANDALL BOLTEN grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of a CIA intelligence officer and a history professor. He is passionate about the importance of presenting financials and other numerical information in a cogent and effective way, and in his current life is the author of Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).

He is a seasoned financial executive, with many years directing the financial and other operations of high-technology companies. His experience includes nearly twenty years as a chief financial officer of software companies.

He has held the CFO position at public companies BroadVision and Phoenix Technologies, and at private companies including Arcot Systems, BioCAD, and Teknekron. Before his CFO positions, he held senior financial management positions at Oracle and Tandem Computers.

He received his AB from Princeton University, headed west to earn an MBA at Stanford University, and ended up staying in Silicon Valley. 

In addition to writing Painting with Numbers, he currently operates Lucidity, a consulting and executive coaching practice focused on organizing and presenting complex financial information. He divides his work time between Glenbrook, NV and Washington, DC, and maintains an office in Menlo Park, CA.

Let’s take a look at some of the most messed-up, incomprehensible recent examples of quantation. Not surprisingly, all are graphs. But some come from sources that definitely should know better.

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The Bridge between FP&A
FP&A Tags:
Financial Planning and Analysis, FP&A Analytics

By Karl Kern, Accountant / Lecturer / Writer

FP&A is a process of thinking and learning about how companies earn income and generate cash flows.  In order for this process to be effective a bridge between planning and analysis is necessary.  I learned about the importance of this bridge early in my professional life.

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