One of the characteristics people use to describe me is well-read which is appropriate because I enjoy reading material that covers a variety of fields.  One of the fields I cover is sports because it provides connections to finance. While covering sports I found material that represents a connection to budgets and the connection is the leadership style of a football manager, Jurgen Klopp.

A Deloitte survey of 600 global finance leaders, as highlighted in CFO.COM, found that: "companies spent nearly half their time creating and updating reports, and just a fraction of that time devoted to uncovering insights in the data — insights that could prove vital to the business”. 

All functions have operational deliverables, with perhaps a very few exceptions like a Corporate Strategy function. Given this “daily business” that has to be conducted, it is logical that risk rears its considerable head when attempting change. The greater the change impact and ambition, the bigger the risk has to be taken into account on how to guarantee “business continuity”. FP&A is not exempt from this. 

In this article, I will explain to you what I learned about Cash this year and what you can use to improve your cash management. Like most of the Finance Managers, I bring a specific focus on reaching our targets and report on how well (or bad) we do in comparison with these targets.

There are different interpretations of FP&A business partnering. In my opinion, it represents a relationship between FP&A and other departments in which all of the parties involved professionally deliver what is required and provide support to each other, with the ultimate aim of creating value for the organisation. For the partnership to work in the long run, there should be a benefit for everyone involved. This is why it is important to have a clear idea about expected outcomes. 

The business environment is becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable. The last month can be a striking example: the world has experienced so many “black swans” as never before.

Last month we warned that the record level of the UK’s well- being needed to be re-visited once the impact of the coronavirus had been assessed… and look at what has happened since! The outbreak has dominated the media and infected business confidence around the world. It is still early days in the development of the virus, but already the Accountagility Index (AAX) has lost 41 basis points this month.

Imagine you’re a train dispatcher tasked with making hundreds of trains run smoothly every day. They must go through an interconnected network where trains run in a sequence and can’t just pass each other along the route. Suddenly a delay occurs on one of the trains because a door won’t close properly. What do you do?
 

Starting with the end in mind is one of the simplest ideas that is frequently ignored. I have seen so many analysts begin designing a financial model without having a clear understanding of the purpose of the model. In this article, you will find three types of models and some tips on how to design a good one.

The second Washington, D.C. area FP&A board was held on March 12, 2020 at the offices of Robert Half International in McLean, VA and was sponsored by SAP.  It was a smaller board meeting, amidst emerging Coronavirus concerns, but the small size gave way to a lively and timely discussion about the evening’s topic: FP&A Analytical Transformation.