To be successful business partners, FP&A professionals should capitalise on the latest technological advances. So how can we digitise FP&A Business Partnering effectively?

The global webinar on 9 November at 11:00 AM PST will discuss Surfing Uncertainty with Сontinuous Planning.

Whether it’s financial reports, management analysis or updates to financial processes and systems, Agile approaches are becoming more attractive for Finance teams. When adopted successfully, organisations see improvements in quality, speed of delivery, and overall customer satisfaction. 

John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, famously said, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

Like Kennedy, this digest finds us looking to the future as we confront change and uncertainty. This time, the issue is thematic. It explores a single subject, namely Digital FP&A: using AI/ML/Predictive Analytics for planning and forecasting.

Many companies measure their progress against annual objectives through profit and loss (P&L) reporting and a business performance measurement (BPM) tool. In many cases, this tool is a scorecard summarising the key P&L and balance sheet numbers. Is this enough?

Through the adoption of technology, FP&A teams are able to achieve complete visibility and help guide the company as a whole while assisting each team to optimise performance.

The volume of data is so large and complex that forecasts are often unpredictable: the world is changing faster than managers can anticipate. Managers can no longer rely on traditional monthly reporting of internally generated data to navigate the future. This is where iFP&A comes in.

In this digest, we reveal how to deal with the rise in expectations for FP&A practitioners, the three crucial aspects of FP&A storytelling, and the transformation journey of the Coca-Cola Company’s McDonald’s Division.

At the bottom of this digest, you will find invitations to two webinars that will help you stay on top of the latest trends and developments in FP&A. We would be delighted if you would join us as we explore the path to agile FP&A, and discover how to manage profitability in difficult times.

Building an analytically led organisation, focused on bending the cost curve and reinvesting those savings into opportunities that are earlier on the product lifecycle are key steps to growing and sustaining shareholder value.  No company will continue to grow forever.  In order to stick around, you’ll need to one day start to bend the cost curve. 

When your financial planning and analysis (FP&A) becomes data-driven using automation and an intuitive platform with the right tools, then there's a fundamental shift. The data flows freely, it's trustworthy, and it starts to work for you. In fact, it can lead to a transformation, especially with decision-making around your organisation's finances and business strategy. But how can you reach this point?