How can you make budgeting and forecasting reports engaging for stakeholders?

We had an amazing Analytics Manager who brought humor and wit to his monthly business review metric presentations. The decks were clear, concise, and full of clear information on business impact. Many business review decks have great data, but what they lack is great storytelling that engages the audience. This Analytics Manager could tell a story about metrics that was so informative, yet entertaining---you'd forget it was work. This person is one of the top 1% of the people I have ever worked with and I still think about his monthly presentations with great fondness because he always brought a smile to everyone's face with not just his witty humor but also his positive energy.

Also directly talking to stakeholders and asking them what they look for in the report or presentation..what are their concerns, how data can help..will help to make meaningful reports leading to constructive discussions.

You can now automate reports with platforms like BI, enabling access to live data with just a click. However, the true value for finance is, in being a strategic partner. It’s crucial even more now to not only understand the numbers/trends, but to be able to craft engaging stories around them. Presenting these insights effectively (with use of dashboards/visuals) and strategically using questions to maintain engagement is a skill that requires practice, but it is key to making the reporting process much more impactful.

En nuestro equipo nos hacemos tres preguntas antes de crear un informe, ?A quién va dirigido? ?Qué esperas lograr al crear el informe? ?Cómo vas a darle seguimiento? Creamos el informe que responda a éstas preguntas, lo revisamos para ver si realmente está en línea con las respuestas, y ser así, procedemos con el envío y/o presentación

Frame your data within a narrative that connects with stakeholders. Explain the context behind the numbers, highlight successes, challenges, and the implications for the future. Storytelling can make the data relatable and memorable.

My department used to create an internal performance report which consisted pages on pages of numbers/tables and the odd bar graph. It was incredibly dull and challenging to run all stakeholders through the report.. engagement was limited. That report was replaced with a visualisation dashboard which immediately caught everyones attention. A visual is much easier to comprehend then a stack of numbers (when done right of course). The other main advantage of the dashboard was the ability to interrogate the data, to drill down and identify where the underlying causes of negative performance instantly increases engagement and proactiveness.

Knowing the audience to assess their level of understanding of financial information is a very important part that will help in identifying the most suitable way to communicate such information. Visually presenting the financial information can help in communicating this information more clearly to those who are at the senior level or to those who have no strong financial background. Considering the feedback can be useful in improving the way of communicating financial information to others.

When the audience has no strong financial background, using visualisation and stories can be a very efficient way to communicate budget reports and information. There are many software programmes that can be very useful to communicate such information.

Making budgeting and forecasting presentations engaging for stakeholders involves a combination of clear visualization, and compelling storytelling. Visualize data effectively means using charts, graphs, and other visual aids to represent data in an easily understandable manner. Choose visualizations that are relevant to the key points you want to convey, such as trends, year-on-year comparisons between actuals and forecasts, or variance analysis versus budget. Keep it always simple, Avoid overwhelming stakeholders with too much information. Focus on presenting the most important insights, and use concise language Tell a Story with a beginning and end, through the key assumptions, drivers and outcomes. Summarize the most important findings

In order to gain better engagement from the stakeholders on your budgeting reports you can do several things as follows: - Present your budget report in a meeting with audience from C Level team to department managers. - Use proper visualization such as line graphic with creative design to show trend from past years into the next year's budget and explain some exciting points such business growth, new market, etc. - Prepare compelling stories on the key assumption and critical points of the budget including the main goals to be achieved through the budget. - Engage with the audience during the presentation by using easy to understand words and attract question from audience to ensure they understand the fundamental of the budget.

Don't just send your reports by email. A quick meeting (30 min), with your top 3 stakeholders is an effective way to build trust and get interaction from your audience.

Be an efficient Business partner. Take the stakeholders along with you on the journey. Make them understand WHY we are doing this and HOW we are planning to do it. Understand their perspective before we dump the revenue targets/cost budgets. At the end of the day, the organisation is successful only when everyone is sailing the same boat

If you start with the overall big picture of what the budgets or forecasts are trying to achieve, have an "ask", how the stakeholder and their team can contribute, and then show how their ideas impact the overall goal, you have far more engagement and buy-in. Sometimes growth is king and other times cash is king, if you "ask" rather than tell, all the reasons why "it can't be done" tend to melt away, effective solutions are often generated and the stakeholder naturally understands, lives and breathes the KPI, rather than checking in on the results right before a Board meeting.

Learning your audience's priorities and concerns can make difficult budget/forecasting discussions more productive. Budgeting/forecasting doesn't need to be an adversarial process - being frank and honest about budget constraints and working with stakeholders to find solutions rather than mandating an end result can yield much more favorable results for all parties.

Talk business, not numbers: I do my best to talk about business, and not about numbers, e.g. I do not say we need more revenue to meet top down target, but I talk about the drivers whether we need more leads (with higher marketing spend), or selective price increases or stronger marketing execution or adding M&A - whichever is relevant in the context. I found that management engages far better in this way, however, it takes plenty of preparation to be able to talk in a credible way. Define message first: define upfront the message you want to deliver, the message that is relevant and likely novel to the audiance. Then build the story and the visual around the message. Directors engage in messages, use slides as tools to deliver.

From my experience, presenting a comparative analysis between current performance and budget/forecast using both tables and graphs, along with concise commentary on the key drivers, effectively captures the attention of stakeholders. Utilizing visual elements like color codes, shapes, and legends to highlight trends and interrelationships further enhances the presentation. However, merely delivering data with brief comments falls short in terms of optimizing or rectifying results. Live interaction with organizational leaders is crucial in this process. This encourages audience brainstorming, turning ideas into actionable commitments. Consistent and concise meetings focused on the topic help sustain audience engagement and concentration.

One important thing to remember when presenting graphs and visuals is to tie them to a story that your audience can easily understand. It's a good idea to use real-life examples that most people can relate to, such as a household budget for groceries. Rather than presenting a boring sales and margin graph, you can compare it with how a household these days does its grocery shopping. You can talk about how inflation affects grocery prices, just as it affects our expenses. This way, you can grab everyone's attention and make your presentation more engaging.

Budgeting and forecasting reports include performance assessments for different areas of the business, such as revenue, costs, and expenses. Thus, we should clearly identify the stakeholders or audience for each part of this information, try to understand the requirements for each of these stakeholders, and work on providing them with it in the form of charts, tables, texts, or stories telling them the numbers and facts or causes of these numbers. Asking for feedback can play a very important role in improving the reports to match the stakeholders expectations and requirements, which might change from time to time.

The key is the perfection of simplicity. A financial story based on the comparative figures linked to the strategic objectives using modern presentation methods (BI Charts etc).