CFO Magazine: Cycle Time to Complete the Annual Budget: Metric of the Month

“Based on data from more than 3,900 organizations in our Open Standards Benchmarking survey for Planning and Management Accounting, APQC finds that top performers complete the annual budget in 25 days or less — half the time it takes organizations in the 75th percentile.”

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FP&A Trends: The Winning Formula of Integrated FP&A

According to FP&A Trends, these 4 areas need to be strong in the foundation of Integrated FP&A in order to be winning:

1. Data
2. Technology
3. Culture
4. Talent

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FP&A Trends: How Data-Driven FP&A Powers Smarter Decision Making

“When your financial planning and analysis (FP&A) becomes data-driven using automation and an intuitive platform with the right tools, then there’s a fundamental shift. The data flows freely, it’s trustworthy, and it starts to work for you. In fact, it can lead to a transformation, especially with decision-making around your organisation’s finances and business strategy. But how can you reach this point?”

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FP&A Trends: Navigating Uncertainty with Scenario Planning and Predictive Planning

“After careful consideration on how to extract much more value from forecasting activity while spending significantly less time on it, it’s been decided to

1. adopt a driver-based approach to forecasting, model strategic levers and resource allocations; 
2. build an integrated FP&A eco-system through standardising, centralising and integrating core FP&A processes in the FP&A Centres of Expertise.”

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CFO Dive: Only 20% of CFOs can forecast revenue, earnings beyond a year: survey

“CFOs will push up IT spending worldwide by 6.2% this year to a record $3.92 trillion, according to Gartner, as they accelerate their pre-pandemic plans for digital transformation by at least five years.

Given the disruption from the coronavirus, “this is the perfect time to actually start the transformation,” Ajmera told CFO Dive. “Everyone in the organization — board members, etcetera — understands the pain and understands the need.””

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CFO Journal: Master Data to Sharpen a Competitive Edge

“In some industries, digital technologies have already reshaped certain aspects of how the finance function conducts business—lowering operating costs, effort, and risk while increasing the analytic value and transparency of financial data. The steps companies have taken in the finance function include: Financial planning, Finance operations, and Decision support.”

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SF Magazine: Maximizing FP&A Assets

“While FP&A has been within the management accountant’s tool kit for decades, three recent trends have elevated the importance of FP&A skills: increased access to data, the availability of new business intelligence (BI) technologies, and the greater role of finance as a strategic partner.”

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FP&A Trends: Managing Fixed Costs During Uncertainty

When looking to reduce fixed costs, Karnawat suggests investigating these expense categories:

• Payroll and benefits
• Supplier relationships
• Outsourcing
• Cost of operations and value creation
• Culture

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WSJ: Anticipate, Test ‘What If’ Scenarios With Analytics

“As organizations navigate the many issues they’ve had to address in recent months, some may be capturing and documenting their decisions and actions so the information can be leveraged as part of future continuity planning. Indeed, the insights gained through the pandemic can be helpful in preparing for other events or scenarios, whether in isolation or in combination with others, where the consequences are significant, but the likelihood is low. However, there may be more organizations can do to build their resilience and prepare for possible future disruptors.”

Read more at WSJ >