The second Washington, D.C. area FP&A board was held on March 12, 2020 at the offices of Robert Half International in McLean, VA and was sponsored by SAP.  It was a smaller board meeting, amidst emerging Coronavirus concerns, but the small size gave way to a lively and timely discussion about the evening’s topic: FP&A Analytical Transformation.

What are the success factors?

The meeting started with a discussion led by Larysa Melnychuk, Founder & CEO at FP&A Trends Group. Data & people emerged as common themes. The group agreed that good quality data & strong tools to process that data were critical elements to a successful FP&A transformation. Yet common challenges emerged about data quality, governance & access. Beyond data the board also discussed people as another critical theme to any successful FP&A transformation. With many stakeholders, the group discussed the importance of leadership buy-in, and also the engagement of business leaders & the teams that will implement the transformation. 

“P&A Analytical Transformation at the AES Corporation”

Travis Nels, Global Head of FP&A at AES Corporation, presented his own case study and experiences with transformation. Travis highlighted the successful progress made towards transformation, but also some of the challenges, such as stakeholder buy-in, which had taken longer than initially expected.

Conclusion

The importance of rolling, driver-based forecasts was particularly relevant as members discussed plummeting oil prices and the rapidly emerging business threats from the Coronavirus.