The ever-increasing pace of change in the Financial  Planning & Analytics (FP&A) industry can, at times, seem overwhelming to practitioners. This has fuelled a growing demand for thought-leadership and the establishment and discussion of best practices. In response to many requests from the UK professional community, the London FP&A Circle was established in July 2016.

FP&A in a small sized business is different than in a large, corporate firm. While one can argue that we all face a lack of time and resources, there often is no dedicated FP&A function in a smaller enterprise. FP&A team members in a smaller firm are wearing many more hats than FP&A. Again, we don’t have too many people that report to us (if any) that are analysts. 

The fourth meeting of the Boston FP&A Board was held on March 26, 2019.  The meeting was held at the offices of Robert Half and was sponsored by not only Robert Half but also SAP. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Integrated FP&A.

In April 2019, the International FP&A Board held the 6th Frankfurt meeting where more than 30 senior finance practitioners shared their ideas about what is a new age of Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB).

Scenario planning is an important technique for a flexible and dynamic FP&A that enhances the decision-making process. In the analytically mature organisation, the standard approach of “three scenarios” (best, average and worst) is replaced with multiple on-demand scenarios that could be played in real time.

Business schools tend to divide their curriculum between hard quantitative-oriented courses, such as operations management and finance; and soft behavioral courses, such as change management, ethics and leadership. This separation of the curriculum is like chambers in a mansion.

The San Francisco FP&A Board met for the third time. In March 2019, the professional debate was devoted to the subject of FP&A Business Partnering. More than 30 senior finance professionals, representing companies such as Autodesk, BioMarin, Gensler, Google, HP, etc., shared their experience with each other. 

On March 28th 2019, the New York FP&A Board hosted its 5th meeting at the Michael Page offices in midtown Manhattan. Over 34 high profile finance professionals attended the event sponsored by SAP and Michael Page where the topic of discussion was Integrated FP&A.

Where is your finance team on the analytics maturity curve? Is finance in your organization providing prescriptive analytics to help steer the business? Is your financial planning and analysis team use artificial intelligence or machine learning to improve forecast accuracy? These are just a few of the many topics we discussed at the recent FP&A Board meeting in Toronto.