For the fourth time, senior finance practitioners joined Dubai FP&A Board. 

When preparing the implementation of a planning and forecasting system I am often asked if we can just take the existing spreadsheet solution and squeeze this into the new system. Invariably my answer is: Yes, we can do this, but we should not. Why?

The first step in forecasting is to understand where we are today and how we arrived at that point from the past. This is gain through analysis and reporting. 

There’s been a steady move towards having more business partner roles in FP&A, similar to other support functions like IT and HR, but what does this all mean for FP&A?

According to research conducted by the Hackett Group, the market for robotic process automation (RPA) is real and growing. It has the potential to change the business process outsourcing (BPO) landscape, global business services (GBS) organizations, and broader business-specific processes. 

FP&A Trends Group is happy to announce the continuation of our global webinar project. We will finish the year with a very exciting subject — "Artificial Intelligence for FP&A". The 21st century FP&A is ready for complete analytical transformation.

Increasingly, managers are now looking to change the corporate planning process and replace the traditional annual budget with rolling forecasts, 12, 13 or 15 months ahead. What is the reason for this development?

People are the most expensive asset but they are vital to running a successful business and delivering value. However, few organizations understand the why talent management and retention is important to their bottom line.

I had the pleasure of attending the 7th London FP&A circle. The Circle is the educational branch of the International FP&A Board which shares the latest professional trends and developments with the UK FP&A community. It is open to both senior and mid-level finance practitioners.

Recent trends in FP&A have been to focus on data analytics and driver-based planning to provide better information for business leaders to make decisions. An often-overlooked challenge in transforming financial planning and analysis is the FP&A team’s structure and resource alignment. This article examines how we are transforming the people part of FP&A.