The Ledger

Achieving a Well-Rounded Approach to Digital Business Planning

Digital business planning should be seen as a comprehensive approach to supply chain planning that uses trusted data, process integration, automation, and collaboration to meet the demands of complexity in the digital economy. FP&A professionals should also consider the idea of integrating demand planning and demand sensing into the larger planning process in order to deliver what customers want most. While demand planning involves traditional time-series methods that are based on historical trends and seasonal patterns, demand sensing brings live or recent data into the mix. Together, these processes span the entire planning spectrum – from more strategic planning such as sales and operations planning to operational demand planning.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

Establishing Your Smart Manufacturing Strategy to Drive Profitability

“A critical issue for the business is profitability and, in serving that primary goal, to continuously improve or even transform operations so you can remain profitable over the long run. To ensure your smart manufacturing strategy drives profitability, focus on how it helps leverage data to keep costs down and productivity up. Think also about how to leverage data to build a more agile and flexible business so you can more quickly respond to market conditions. Finally, automate manufacturing systems with an eye toward making data available, so you can more effectively address problem areas, whether it be speed, quality, waste or material losses.”

Read More at Forbes Magazine >

Have You Realized the Full Value of Your FP&A Software?

“The process of implementing FP&A software is as critical as the quality of the solution, according to new research.

CFOs know the importance of financial planning and analysis solutions that allow their finance teams to develop budgets and forecasts quickly and accurately. Unfortunately, selecting the right FP&A software is only half the battle. Equally important is how that technology is implemented across the enterprise, from training users and setting their expectations to ensuring that they receive continued support after the software goes live. Absent a successful implementation, a company will never realize the full value from its investment.

Read More at CFO Magazine >

How Technology is Re-Shaping Your Business Models

Effective business models must include three features: the target customers of the business, the value proposition for those customers, and the value chain architecture. Innovation in digital technology allows organizations to redefine and recreate their business models by giving organizations the flexibility to redraw their value chain architecture. This not only creates new value propositions for existing customers but can also change the customer set. Redrawing business models start with changing the sequence of the value chain.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >