The role of the CFO is changing: It’s moving away from compliance and optimization, towards a more strategic; customer facing disruptive role. How are FP&A teams delivering strategic value in today’s world?

Because of Covid 19, businesses have faced unprecedented and potentially life-threatening challenges. This has highlighted the importance of using FP&A Predictive Analytics to stay ahead of the curve and take corrective action on time. At the FP&A Webinar, the panel of three high-profile speakers discussed the challenges, lessons and benefits of Managing Uncertainty with FP&A Predictive Analytics.

We all have these horror stories where we have all sacrificed our personal lives during this challenging ‘Budget’ season. I guess they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I personally think that there are several ways to make your lives better during this period.

Traditional legacy and static methods are no longer sufficient for budgeting, planning, and forecasting. To help navigate this challenge, we must turn to Scenario Planning and Rolling Forecasts to guide us. 

The vast majority of companies still rely on traditional organisational designs characterised by hierarchical structures, and steering with budgets. But these designs are outdated, severely limiting a company's ability to act and respond in today’s fast-changing environments. 

How can organisations operate viably in this age of uncertainty?

The economic volatility of 2020 has revealed the shortcomings of the traditional FP&A process and the pressing need for transformation. For budgeting, planning, and forecasting in particular, conventional methods are no longer sufficient This is where Scenario Planning and Rolling Forecasts can help guide us. 

A plan, for an incompetent manager, is just an administrative task that needs to be completed to satisfy the boss and headquarters. Nothing else. There is no attempt to think about objectives, goals, roadmaps or any of the classic planning principles. For a boss this behaviour should be easy to detect, but if they are unaware of their inherent incompetence, then the incompetent managers will remain undetected.

In this volatile environment, implementing a flexible process and modern digital technology to manage change is increasingly important. No surprise the FP&A Transformation subject is high on companies’ agendas.

In this digest, we share research on digital transformation in the finance function, and a case study of how to establish a brand-new FP&A department. You will also find guides to the growing role of big data, and to designing data-driven planning architecture.

One of the biggest barriers for organisations to increase agility comes from unaligned top-down and bottom-up planning processes.

Integrated FP&A is not a new term. Most experienced FP&A professionals are probably already subconsciously doing it. Integrated FP&A promotes the idea of collaborative planning where finance professionals work with different parts of the organisation to create a holistic view and plan.