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]
In the previous article in this series, I discussed why we need to rethink corporate planning, and I opened the box for discussing alternatives. The suggested way forward was to adopt active planning as opposed to reactive or static planning. Now I’ll go into more detail why that is and… [READ MORE]
It’s an exciting time to be in finance. FP&A teams are in a unique position to provide strategic guidance to decision-makers, and financial modeling is one way to forge that path. Want to get a seat at the strategy table? It’s time to level up your financial models, tame your… [READ MORE]
It’s a new year and a new decade. Recognizing this tends to spur talk of transformation and the commitment real transformation requires. For software businesses like ours, that commitment takes the form of reflecting on what’s working for our customers, large and small and in every industry, and what we… [READ MORE]
Traditional, corporate planning is quickly proving to be out of sync with the rapidly accelerating, fast-changing business environment. The volume, variety, and velocity of new information pouring in every second, from every corner of the business, far exceeds our capacity to meaningfully process it. It doesn’t help that most companies… [READ MORE]
From accountants to FP&A professionals, the Office of Finance is fast becoming the engine of insight in the modern enterprise. This hasn’t always been so. For years accountants were seen as “bean counters” and CFOs as gatekeepers. But that’s changing as powerful new technologies help finance teams transform corporate data… [READ MORE]
Financial modeling is like a superpower—one that lets you test your assumptions and hypotheses across dimensions, versions, and time before executing budgets and plans. A well-formulated model lets you run unlimited scenarios across any program, department, or business unit, according to your fiscal calendar or other business milestones. In other… [READ MORE]
Hang around salespeople with any regularity and you’ll hear many opinions about sales territories—whether they’re fair, well-distributed, or in line with quotas. After all, a lot rides on getting territories right—livelihoods, corporate objectives, and business growth. It makes sense that savvy sales ops professionals turn to reasoned, data-backed territory design… [READ MORE]
