The International FP&A Board held its fourth event in Frankfurt in May. For the second time, we met in an amazing Regus property "Skyper Villa" to discuss the art and science of Driver-Based Planning (DBP). 

The concept of modern FP&A (and, in particular, the DBP approach) has become increasingly well-known and popular in Germany. In Frankfurt, 25 board members debated on the practical aspects of the DBP concept and contributed to the development of the DBP Maturity Model. It was also a pleasure having  Stéphane Bonutto with us, CFO Europe at Oerlikon Balzers Germany, who shared his insights with the group.

Agenda

• Evolution of Driver-Based Planning.
• Driver-Based approach as a basis for predictive analytics.
• Driver-Based approach as a basis for effective Rolling Forecast and Scenario Planning.
• Stéphane Bonutto, CFO Europe at Oerlikon Balzers Coating Germany GmbH will share his insights from the field.
• Evolution of Driver-Based Planning. Group work.
• Conclusions and recommendations.

At the meeting, there were also representatives of other local and international companies besides Oerlikon Balzers. The finance practitioners from Dafos, Dematic, Henry Schein, Honeywell, State Street and other organisations took part in a lively discussion and shared their knowledge and expertise with their peers. 

The Frankfurt Board agreed that DBP is the basis for many modern FP&A methods and concepts such as Scenario Planning, Rolling Forecast, Integrated Planning, etc. During the meeting, the members formulated several DBP recommendations which can be useful for any finance practitioner working with Driver-Based Planning:

• Data collection should be automated.
• Get more people involved in contributing less data more frequently.
• Use Drivers as the language of performance.
• Get sponsorship for change from the top.
• Implementation in phases.
• Define Drivers per business area.
• Step by step approach (strategy, financial core, operational plans).
• Use technology which allows for modeling

Overall, the meeting was very productive and generated valuable insights.

We are very grateful to Regus Germany and to Apliqo for sponsoring this great event.