In order to help businesses navigate today’s most pressing issues and trends in financial planning, we’re bringing you curated information and materials to help you respond each week. This week’s articles highlight news in financial planning as well as what experts are saying on the matter.
1. FP&A Trends: How FP&A Provides Business Decision Support
To provide the best support to the business leaders, FP&A needs to quickly leverage the accounting information at hand. Especially during hard times, business is hungry for insights from financial results and the pressure on FP&A increases tremendously.
2. Workday Adaptive Planning: How to Create Compelling Board Reports
Many finance leaders feel more comfortable with an empty spreadsheet than a blank notebook. But in today’s data-deluged, disruptive world, every CFO needs to be a storyteller who injects meaning into numbers. This holds especially true at corporate board meetings, when the directors—who probably aren’t involved in the company’s day-to-day operations—require fewer data points and a clear big picture.
3. Deloitte: Federal Reserve monetary policy in the time of COVID-19
IN the past 12 years, the US Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) has faced two major financial crises. One started within financial markets (the housing finance collapse of 2007–2009) and one involved an outside shock (the COVID-19 pandemic). The Fed responded in each case with an alphabet soup of new programs, and despite the differences between the two crises, these actions had a similar effect: stabilizing the financial system. But in both cases, the Fed’s impact on employment and economic growth has seemed sluggish at best.
4. CFODIVE: Most Important Part of Financial Planning? Communication.
The most important part of financial planning during a crisis? Communicating everything you know, even if you don’t know what’s to come, panelists said at the MIT Sloan CFO virtual summit Friday.
Leading from the front is “absolutely critical” for Judy Romano, vice president and CFO of commercial and technology for InterContinental Hotels Group. “This is when we need to show what leadership is all about, and be transparent, If you don’t know something, say so. Otherwise, people start making things up, and that’s really not good.”
5. FP&A Trends: Quantitative Modeling and Simulation for Strategic Financial Planning
Contrary to short-term budget planning or planning for a specific financial task, strategic financial planning plans for the ultimate goal of a company – avoiding the path to bankruptcy and striving for a sustainable rate of growth.
Strategic planning is mostly done with qualitative analysis. In this article, we will explore the use of quantitative tools, how to narrow down the number of variables to focus on and what tools can help with managing multiple scenarios.
Thanks for checking in this week! We’ll be back next Thursday with more updates in financial planning. In the meantime, subscribe to our blog to get our posts directly in your inbox.