Many businesses spend weeks or months laboring over the annual plan or budget, even though by the time it’s finished, the market has changed dramatically and its assumptions are out of date. They forecast based on historic data and the best guesses of functional business leaders and line managers. But there’s… [READ MORE]
It’s fascinating what you can learn from speaking with the people your company is dedicated to serving. For years, we’ve engaged with customers to identify what they need from our business planning solutions. Lately, however, more and more finance leaders are thinking about business agility. They’re thinking about it a… [READ MORE]
Every day, there’s a new statistic on the growing volume of data in the world: terabytes, petabytes, even yottabytes. Clearly the data tsunami is here. What does this mean for the enterprise? For one, it’s going to impact how our organizations plan for the future. I recently sat down with… [READ MORE]
FP&A is obviously concerned with financials; however FP&A can no longer take a narrow view of its own role. FP&A must go way beyond the financials to where the business happens to succeed in making planning a success! We discussed in my previous post the notion of active planning and… [READ MORE]
Traditional budgeting is simply too slow and too rigid to keep up with today’s rapidly changing business environment. There is great volatility, complexity, and uncertainty in the future. Gone are the days when budgets could be one-and-done—tied to a fixed point in time and too inflexible to adjust to quickly… [READ MORE]
As a finance leader, you’re intimately familiar with your company’s data and KPIs. But guess what? Most of your board members aren’t—and they don’t want or need that level of detail. What do they want? Like your CEO, board members are searching for trusted, strategic deputies who can provide high-level,… [READ MORE]
The global marketplace is moving faster, requiring companies to be more agile than ever in this age of urgency. Yet businesses—and specifically finance teams—still rely on tools that sustained them decades ago. Those tools were designed for an age when planning was an annual, top-down and linear process, but today… [READ MORE]
You want full business partner participation in planning, budgeting, and forecasting but you struggle to engage other departments in the process. Does this sound familiar? We thought so. But don’t fret. Here are five tips to spark cross-functional, companywide engagement and build confidence in the financial planning process. 1. Define… [READ MORE]
Calculating sales capacity is relatively straightforward, but the stakes are high, and failing to get alignment on a solid sales staffing plan means you’ll be scrambling to match your headcount with top-line targets. And even if you start early (e.g., in Q3 or early Q4 for the next fiscal year),… [READ MORE]
When it comes to business, collaboration is vital. After all, no single department can do its job for long without the other departments pulling their own weight. Sales is no good if shipping can’t deliver; marketing falls flat if customer service keeps alienating users; everything grinds to a halt if… [READ MORE]
