The Pulse of Financial Planning (Oct. 29, 2020)

the-pulse-of-financial-planning-banner

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. CFO.com: Special Report: Nailing the Number

Next-level technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, coupled with access to big data, have given the chief financial officer superpowers. The problem: many CFOs are not using them.

Real-time data analytics allow finance teams to gain deeper knowledge of operations, risks, sources of efficiencies, and potential new business models, to name a few benefits. But in terms of forecasting sales revenue, perhaps the most important number in financial planning and analysis (FP&A), finance chiefs aren’t always leveraging the data and technology they have.

2. FP&A Trends: FP&A and IT: A Forced Marriage That Has to Work

From the setup of the company laptop to pulling data for analysis from different systems, IT is all over the office, and it becomes more and more present in the daily operation of FP&A.

As the appetite for detailed business insights is growing on data that is accumulating, we face the need for a stronger, true cooperation between FP&A and IT, to support faster, more accurate business decisions.

3. Workday Adaptive Planning: What is xP&A? It’s Company-Wide Planning.

xP&A stands for extended planning and analysis—taking the best of modern finance planning and extending it across the enterprise. But it’s not new. For years, it has been known as company-wide planning.

Finance leaders whose organizations have been made more agile and strategic with modern planning and analysis have known for years that their approach to planning can transform other parts of the business. Now, as they work to recover from the global COVID-19 pandemic, that awareness is more valuable than ever.

4. CFODIVE: 4 Cost Management Mistakes for CFOs to Avoid in 2021

Many CFOs are at a high risk of making four mistakes that could hurt their ability to fund digital growth and reduce expenses overall, a Gartner finance survey finds. The risks come at a time when COVID-19 recovery will hinge on rapid digital transformation and continued digital investments.

5. Deloitte: Unleashing the Potential—and Power—of FP&A

As CFOs make structural changes to their finance departments—weaving together a mix of shared service centers, centers of excellence, and outsourcing arrangements—they create new opportunities for the remaining or “retained” finance function to add more value. Case in point: The financial planning and analysis (FP&A) function, which may be particularly poised to play a more strategic role across the enterprise.

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.