Dear colleagues,

Who decides when a plan has changed enough to act?

In many companies, nobody has agreed on that in advance. Finance sees an assumption move, Operations sees the commitments already made, and the decision waits for the next meeting. Only 27% of executives say they can re-plan in real time, and the range runs from 37% of CFOs to 15% of COOs, according to the Board's 2026 Planning Intelligence Report.

One of the report's six steps is to set thresholds for material shifts in advance and give every trigger an owner and a response time. The articles in this issue look at the same problem from three perspectives: how shared drivers and clear owners for each input connect financial and operational planning, what happens when the person answerable for the forecast does not control all of its inputs, and how Finance can join supply-chain decisions before the commitments are made.

A trigger nobody owns is just a worry.

Warm regards,

Larysa Melnychuk

CEO and Founder at FP&A Trends Group

Enterprise planning is moving faster than the data behind it. Board’s 2026 Planning Intelligence Report reveals that 83% of executives say their board has acted on a forecast they already knew was outdated, while only 27% can adjust a plan in real time.

Inside the report, discover:

• why forecast freshness has become a board-level issue
• where planning speed falls short of executive confidence
• how AI, continuous planning, and governance can help finance leaders make faster, more confident decisions

Download the report →

A shared forecast means little if Sales, Operations and Finance are still working from different assumptions. Waqas Choudhry looks at how common drivers and clearer ownership help changes in demand flow through capacity, workforce, cash and margin without another round of reconciliation.

Read how connected planning works across functions →

FP&A can own the forecast without owning every assumption behind it. Kristina Bow draws on a reorganisation where responsibility for the full P&L stayed with FP&A while parts of SG&A moved elsewhere, showing what happens when accountability and authority no longer sit in the same place.

Read what happens when accountability and authority separate →

By the time a supply-chain issue reaches the forecast, inventory may already be moving and capacity committed. Masha Chandrasekaran shows why Finance creates more value by entering the decision earlier, while there is still time to test scenarios, challenge assumptions and change the response.

Read how Finance enters the decision before commitments harden →

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The upcoming sessions take this discussion further, looking at how AI changes the way FP&A creates value, supports decisions and works with the business.

As AI creates more analytical capacity, the question is what FP&A does with it. This session looks at how Business Partners can enter decisions earlier, challenge assumptions, frame better options and bring the judgement and influence technology cannot replace.

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Fast automation does not automatically create finance value. This session examines how FP&A can choose the right AI use cases, assess ROI, add financial context and connect new capabilities to the wider finance ecosystem.

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