On 17 October 2019, I had the pleasure of facilitating, the 2^nd Paris FP&A Board.

The world is becoming automated and robots are taking over. This is the narrative that has been around for a while and has been promoted as the future, but more than ever, the future is now, and we are seeing the automation of transactional and routine tasks at pace.

On 15 October 2019, I attended the 7th Stockholm FP&A Board, which was sponsored by OneStream Software and Michael Page. The topic of the evening was rolling forecast.  

Whilst Parliament, the Government, the legislature and the EU have been contributing to a feverish few weeks, the UK economy has actually improved. Despite the political twists and turns, the Accountagility Index (AAX) records UK political and economic health in a score out of ten. 

At a corporate level, risks can be very well mapped and controlled using e.g. the COSO framework. Defining the risks is often source driven. This means: the source of the risk is identified leading to the impact being measured by the possibility of occurrence (chance) and the size of its impact on the P&L (money). How much appetite for risk does the company have to achieve its goals? 

When I first came across the term driver based planning and forecasting I was confused. As an ex-investment banker having joined a Finance team the concept of drivers when talking about a forecast or plan was simply assumptions. Why was it not called just that? Assumptions! Investment bankers have been building models with assumptions ever since the first model was built and a corporate transaction was negotiated.

On the 7th of October, the International FP&A Board launched a new chapter in Houston. It was our 26th chapter globally.

Does your finance department add true value to the business? Do you see finance influence decision making in your organisation? Is finance always invited to attend strategic business meetings? If the answer to any of the above questions is “no”, it means a transformation from controlling to finance business partnering function is needed.

We are entering the era of digital FP&A where human and artificial intelligence work hand in hand in order to achieve better analytical results. The new world of FP&A requires on-demand continuous planning process where various business scenarios can be played almost in real-time. Both driver-based planning and FP&A predictive analytics are essential tools for implementing flexible dynamic planning and forecasting process.

At one of the global FP&A Trends webinars, Matthias Thurner, Analytics Visionary and CPO at Unit4, shared his insights and experience on how modern technology can support flexible and dynamic FP&A organisational structure.