Most people are familiar that all businesses go through a life cycle – establishment to start up, startup to growth, growth to maturity, and then finally into decline. Similar to companies, careers have a lifecycle as well. 

Being critical of one’s own work, is even more important for the financial doing the forecast. A forecaster will undoubtedly have his or her bias and blind spots. However, some can be avoided by looking at the forecast itself, and some by looking at person doing the forecast. The aim here is to create deeper awareness of ‘forecasting’ by presenting some structural elements.

On the 25th of July 2019, the International FP&A Board held its second meeting in Hong Kong where 37 senior finance practitioners shared their ideas about FP&A Analytical Transformation.

In December 1999, Gartner introduced the concept of Corporate Performance Management (CPM), which they defined as the “... the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems used to monitor and manage an enterprise's business performance”. 

Xavier Fernandes, Analytics Director at Metapraxis, talks about how FP&A teams are using AI to drive changes in business performance. Xavier also mentions a couple of examples where FP&A teams were faced with ongoing disappointing business performance and what AI approach they chose.

Organisations often struggle to find a balance between their long-term strategic objectives and short-term goals. Being a key player in an organization’s strategy setting and budgeting process, FP&A professionals also face this dilemma as a part of their roles.
 

Fredrik Hedlund, SVP, Global Markets CFO at Nielsen, who is responsible for more than 105 countries, explains how he transformed the company's FP&A and finance function to a centralised structure and shares some lessons learnt during the journey.

The course of managerial accounting dedicates up to two chapters on the subject of budgeting. I don’t want this article to be a repeat of what appears in textbooks.  I want this article to focus on the process of financial planning and how it can be used in your company’s production function.

Design thinking is a creative and practical approach to problem-solving. It involves the creation of multiple options which are then scrutinised through varying viewpoints and lenses to determine the most effective solution.

For most marketing managers doing the annual budget is a bore or waste of time. With most transactional services outsourced and financial management centralised in the home country of the company, local financials spend more and more time with planning, budgeting and forecasting.