The challenges of running a modern business get tougher and tougher. Mainly externally driven challenges including regulation, increases in business complexity for example in the level of competition, the nature of competition, a more complex global supply chain, increases in the speed of change, in no small measure driven by the acceleration in computing and digital technologies. All this leads to a more uncertain and more volatile business environment.

The 7th meeting of the Brussels FP&A Board took place on 13 February 2020 at the Robert Half Offices in Groot-Bijgaarden. Hans Gobin, International FP&A Board Ambassador, facilitated the meeting for the first time in Brussels. The meeting was sponsored by SAP and Robert Half.

I would like to share my experience on my company’s journey towards a better budgeting process. I hope this will provide a starting point for fellow finance professionals to explore better ways to improve your own budget planning process.

According to a recent survey by Prophix and FP&A trends, 88% of companies claim they have data quality issues. The aim of this blog is to sketch the main steps that you can take to ensure that your company belongs to the remaining 12%. 

We are all storytellers in a sense but FP&A stories need particular skills to be great. In an era led by technology, data and automation, where do the stories fit? How will the FP&A stories of the future be told? What are the skills needed to be a great FP&A storyteller? 

One day in November, a worried operations manager for a transport company was preparing for a meeting with the group’s financial director. He’d been ordered to explain the overspending on his region’s fuel account for the first 10 months of the financial year. The variance was huge and the MD had hit the roof! There were many reasons for the variance.

Language is important and the words we use are critical if we don’t want to be misunderstood. Being explicit and specific in the words and sentences we use, will leave less to interpretation and is critical in order to be effective.  In this article I analyse three common phrases I hear regularly in the organisations I work with, what I suggest they really mean and how to break through the ambiguity of them.

These notes were made during the meeting of the FP&A Board on 6th February 2020 in London.  They are a mixture of comments made by attendees and thoughts of those who presented case studies. These notes are the copyright of the FP&A Board and are for the attendees of the FP&A Board and their business colleagues. They are not to be used in publications unless authorized by the FP&A Board.

Change was the other name of 2019 and the area of corporate finance was no different to experience massive fast-paced change. We saw many topics which were “great discussions” in the past now being implemented... these changes are going to stay and will intensify further in the year of 2020 & beyond.

Many certifications and schooling opportunities exist for upgrading our FP&A abilities, and these opportunities continue to increase.  We will focus on some of the formal programs and degrees available that allow one to upskills their abilities and demonstrate a Growth Mindset”. Listed below are some of the different educational opportunities available today that can help us upskill ourselves as we strive to become better FP&A practitioners.