Keeping your company at the forefront of its field means having the ability and confidence to make hard-fast decisions. Success depends heavily on making the right decisions and executing them with speed and efficiency, giving you a serious competitive advantage over the market. EY conducted a survey that revealed 81% of senior executives indicated they needed to improve their decision making speed and get greater insight on their business.

Businesses have long recognised the importance of using data analytics to improve the customer experience. The focus on customer-orientated analytics has, however, resulted in businesses failing to harness the power of their data to optimise their operational processes and significantly improve margins – although this is changing.

Analytics runs all business, yet it’s so often obfuscated. To make it real is a journey of discovery – first, establish a hypothesis, second, build an understandable context and third, act after you have continued to question the problem to conclusion. It’s a Tsunami! Data is estimated to be doubling in size every 2 years.

Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is gaining more and more attention from business leaders. Its focus is the future of the business. The FP&A professionals who work as Finance Business Partners understand basic accounting and reporting, yet their strength is in being from different ‘walks of life’.