FP&A Trends: Scenario Planning: Benefits and Critical Ingredients

“Scenario Analysis provides a structured way to identify a range of potential outcomes, likely estimate impact and then identify and evaluate possible responsive actions. It reinforces the presence of uncertainty and increases our readiness to deal with various potential outcomes. Scenario Planning provides a disciplined approach to dealing with uncertainty and can be applied to any projections about an uncertain future.”

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CFO Magazine: Scenario Planning: A Roadmap Through Recession and Inflation

“Historical performance and figures can only get a company so far when the road ahead is so unclear. Ultimately, forward-looking organizations that can rely on thoughtful, detailed scenario planning are the ones that make it through risk and economic uncertainty most unscathed.”

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FP&A Trends: How FP&A Teams Must Harness Scenario Planning To Aid Decision Making

“The need for short-term, dynamic Scenario-Based Planning becomes evident. However, many organisations remain stuck in the traditional planning process, which takes months to prepare and becomes outdated the moment they are finalised.”

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CFO Dive: IMA CFO Says Scenario Planning is Constant ‘Balancing Act’

“Yet it is also important for CFOs to avoid inflation tunnel vision —“time-traveling” CFOs also have the advantage of being able to think about “what’s going on six months, a year, two years and five or 10 years into the future,” Porter said.”

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FP&A Trends: Drivers of Inflation in 2022, and How FP&A Can Prepare for It

“Whether or not you think you know which macroeconomic model is the right one for the global economy, you only need to know which one is the most relevant for your business. Each business lives in a different part of the overall supply chain, so some will be highly impacted by supply-side commodities prices or energy prices. In contrast, some will be impacted more significantly by the general purchasing power of currency reducing and have more relevant impacts from monetary policy.”

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Harvard Business Review: Setting Your Annual Budget Amid Economic Uncertainty

“What would a mild, moderate, and severe downturn do to your business as a whole and to each part? Get specific. Where are you most vulnerable to inflation? A drop in demand? A supply-chain snarl? What actions would you take in each case? Who should take them?”

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CFO Journal: 3 Dynamic Finance Scenarios for CFOs

“The principles of Dynamic Finance can help finance transform from business function to dynamic capability—while still performing its steward and operator duties—for adapting to external forces with speed, strength, stability, and flexibility.”

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CFO Insights: Provoking the Future: How CFOs Can Take Action to Illuminate Uncertainty

“Build scenario-planning muscles. In a linear world, it was customary to consider a dominant version of the future and construct possible variations around it. Now, with so much about the future up for grabs, CFOs need to have sufficient humility to acknowledge that nobody knows how things are going to turn out and to consider multiple, equally plausible futures. As they explain that future using numbers and models, the gaps will enable them to identify uncertainties. As the actual future develops, they may adjust those scenarios dynamically. Every five years, they may even have to start over.”

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CFO Insights: Future scenarios: Are CFOs Too Worried About Inflation—or Not Worried Enough?

“As CFOs watch inflation numbers rise month after month, so may the intensity of their concerns. Now that it has climbed to an altitude unseen for 40 years, they may be tempted to assume that it is bound to go even higher.

But what if the picture we have today isn’t a reliable guide to what’s ahead? What if by next year inflation is trending down? Or maybe even has dropped into disinflation, with the Consumer Price Index hovering between 0% and 1% as a result of a faster-than-expected resolution of supply chain disruptions combined with diminished consumer demand.”

Read More at Deloitte >