One of the more important qualities of FP&A practitioners is curiosity. Curiosity, a strong desire to know or learn something, is affected by the types of questions asked. It is the types of questions that determine how much FP&A practitioners want to know or learn. One type of question is “what.”  The purpose of asking “what” is to acquire information. Acquiring information can be in the form of financial numbers like revenues, expenses, and cash flows. Acquiring information can be in the form of non-financial numbers like the amount of time companies receive or make payments. Acquiring information can be in the form of qualitative data like comments from customers, names of products, or types of services provided. Asking “what” helps FP&A practitioners know about the environments where they work but knowing is not enough. FP&A practitioners need to ask questions that help them learn about the environments where they work.

The role of planning is to help manage what can be controlled (i.e. the organisation’s business processes, the resources it applies to those processes, and the volume and quality of work done in those processes) to produce outcomes that will achieve organisational objectives, within an uncontrollable and unknowable external environment.

The Boston FP&A Board was established on the 24^th of October 2017 as an educational and networking platform for the local FP&A community.

Since then, a diverse group of members, representing leading global and local companies such as LEGO Systems Inc, Amazon, Takeda, Schneider Electric, CBRE, Siemens Gamesa, Twilio, MassMutual, Philips, and many others joined this think-tank. Together, we explore the best way to address the challenges in the FP&A community in the 21st century. During the meetings, we guide the development and promotion of best practices in global FP&A, identify and support new trends, skillsets and innovations.

The speakers from Moderna, Aetion, Schneider Electric, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and others presented their insights and case studies.
 

In this blog we will look at the components of a modern solution and why it matters. At the heart of every Analytic application is a mathematically based business model. This model describes the organisation in terms of its relationships between:

It’s difficult to think of a business process that is more unpopular than budgeting. In nearly two decades of writing and talking on the subject, I have yet to come across anyone who is prepared to stand up and say it is a good thing.

Organisations operate in an uncontrollable and often unpredictable business environment, such as market demand, energy, inflation and exchange rates. As a consequence, the role of planning is to help manage what can be controlled to produce outcomes that will achieve organisational objectives, within an uncontrollable and unknowable external environment.

Spreadsheets are without doubt the ‘killer’ application that turned the PC into an indispensable business tool. Before then, computing was the preserve of geeks and specialists who spoke in a language few accountants could understand as they served expensive, inaccessible machines locked away in their own air-conditioned environment.

In this episode of the FP&A Trends Video Series,  Hyder Hasan, Global Finance Director at PureCircle and a member of the FP&A Board in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), shares his thoughts on the importance of FP&A soft skills. Soft skills are the differentiating factor between a good business partner and an effective business partner.