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FP&A Team Building in Dubai
February 19, 2020

By Kedar Kale, FP&A Manager at Hala

FP&A Tags
Team Building
FP&A Skills

In February 2020, the Dubai FP&A Board gathered for the 7th time to discuss the subject of "Building Winning Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Teams". Lukas Herbert, FP&A Director at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, facilitated the meeting. The event was sponsored by Jedox, Michael Page and Azdan. 

What are the key features of a successful FP&A Professional?

The session began with a quick question to every participant regarding the most important attribute of an FP&A professional. The outcome was very interesting as almost everyone mentioned a soft skill than a technical one - be it curiosity, storytelling, influencing, agility or continuous improvement.

The discussion regarding FP&A Team Building, roles and synergies was then initiated by recapping the 5 critical FP&A team roles - the Architect, the Data Scientist, the Analyst, the Storyteller and the Influencer. It was mentioned that all these roles are not possible to find in one person, therefore, a team should be built.

Accountants vs FP&A

The participants discussed their experiences and views regarding building FP&A teams. Interesting perspectives emerged around whether the traditional path of most of today's FP&A professionals (from accountant / audit backgrounds) was still relevant or would there be better-suited professionals to tap into while hiring FP&A resources.

One view seemed to be that accountants can be too rigid, arrogant or lacking understanding of data analytics or technological systems making them less suited to be FP&A professionals. In the earlier days of FP&A, the main responsibilities of FP&A teams used to be around ensuring data collection, accuracy and integrity. However, with today's evolved systems, shared service environments, expectations from FP&A teams have evolved towards more strategic business partnering. Engineers or commercial professionals seem to be able to handle this better than traditional accountants. The counter view remains that in order to effectively analyze numbers and identify the story behind them, a deep knowledge of accounting is a pre-requisite.

The ideal FP&A candidate fit seems to be a candidate who has not only a firm knowledge of accounting and comfort with numbers but also a good business understanding and story-telling and influencing skillset. A suggestion to develop these capabilities emerged as being rotations into business roles for FP&A professionals. Establishing credibility also emerged as a key prerequisite for an FP&A team to exert greater influence on business decision making.

Case Studies and Insights

The session ended with two real-life case studies being presented by senior finance leaders, Pawnesh Maniramka and Anand Soni on their personal experiences of building successful FP&A teams in their organizations. Key takeaways were discussed by the participants and the session was thus concluded.

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The Digital UK & Ireland FP&A Board: Moving from Traditional Management Accounting to Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A)
 
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The Digital North American FP&A Board: Inside the Crystal Ball: Top 10 Trends Shaping FP&A in 2021 and Beyond
 
The Digital Benelux FP&A Board: The Art and Science of Digitised FP&A Business Partnering
 
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All events for the year

Future Meetings

The Third Digital North American FP&A Board
The Digital North American FP&A Board: Inside the Crystal Ball: Top 10 Trends Shaping FP&A in 2021 and Beyond
January 26, 2021
Benelux Board
The Digital Benelux FP&A Board: The Art and Science of Digitised FP&A Business Partnering
January 27, 2021
The Fourth Digital Pan-Asian FP&A Board
The Digital Pan-Asian FP&A Board: From Traditional to Better and Beyond Budgeting
February 3, 2021
The Third Digital Swiss FP&A Board
The Digital Swiss FP&A Board: The Power of FP&A Scenario Planning
February 4, 2021
The FP&A Trends Webinar
The FP&A Trends Webinar: A New Age of Zero-Based Budgeting
February 9, 2021
The Digital Middle Eastern FP&A Board
The Digital Middle Eastern FP&A Board: The Future of FP&A: Moving from Traditional Management Accounting to xP&A
February 17, 2021
Planning for Uncertainty
The FP&A Trends Webinar: Planning for Uncertainty: The Building Blocks of Agile FP&A
February 23, 2021
From Traditional Controlling to Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A)
The Digital German FP&A Board: Moving From Traditional Controlling to Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A)
March 4, 2021
The FP&A Trends Webinar
The FP&A Trends Webinar: FP&A Data Visualisation: Moving from Insight to Impact
March 9, 2021
UK-Ireland Board
The Digital UK & Ireland FP&A Board: The Art and Science of Digitised FP&A Business Partnering
March 18, 2021
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