From FP&A Practitoner to Value Creation Partner

All FP&A professionals must link their organization’s strategic plan to their annual budget, the budget into short term objectives and KPIs and then track of those objectives into “bite sized” monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting packs.?

(I cheekily say bite sized knowing full well that those monthly packs are anything but.)?

And so the discipline of the control process comes into play – plan, operate, review, and then repeat.? Something all of us are all too familiar with. Managing the development of the plan is, what I call, one of the functional expertise of an FP&A professional. ?

The Potential.

So many of us get bogged down by the “oh so detailed granularity” of the datasets and the process flow of the budget, it’s difficult to focus on the opportunities that develop our business leadership and develop our ability as a value creator in the process instead of a number cruncher or powerpoint jockey.

We may miss the opportunity to provide leadership instead of instruction.?

We may miss the opportunity of connecting as a business partner to problem solve and discuss solutions instead of pointing out that the outcome does not meet the management objective.

We may miss the opportunity to change mindsets of this beloved process with our internal collaborators and engage with the business positively.

We may miss the opportunity of recognizing an evolving business model and communicate the story and plan effectively.

Finally, we may miss the opportunity to make our peers smile and laugh and remember a positive engagement experience with us.

The Constraints.

Finally in the FP&A world of final presentation, we simply must talk about some of the constraints.?

The review and redo constraint. ?Best practice is to get the whole process executed in a disciplined and effective way.? I'd love to find out how many of us can say that we ended up on time, on track and on point with the “final product”.? How many times has the review and revise step necessitated a “redo” or a “fix action” before the final pack is agreed.? While best practice gives confidence to leadership that we know what we are doing, I wonder if the review and redo mindset is more consistent of best practice.

The time constraint.? Despite the best calendar planning, there just isn’t enough time to get everything done unless you burn the midnight oil, push the business teams while expecting them to still do their day job. ??How many of us can say we started strong and ended well.

The data and technology constraint.?The enormity of generated data takes time to validate.?In an evolving business environment, where datasets need to be updated, one miss can create delays.?The bigger the business structure the more sophisticated dataset and business processes require greater vigilance.

With respect, no matter how much your technology specialist sold you on the idea that their technology fixes all your problems under the sun – it just does not. (I can already hear the disagreements on this one ??)

Finally, despite the best technology to give you the final results, there is a degree of subjective perspective that requires some final manual massaging.?Lets leave it at that for now ??

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Finance Business Partner – the Value Creation Partner

In closing, I put the case forward to you that the FP&A professional is just not a management objective articulator.? I say the FP&A professional is a true Value Creation Partner.? A natural extension to the CFO’s capability.? A future leader in the grooming.?

Provided.?Provided that the FP&A practitioner can harness the potential of opportunities within the business and contain the constraints of the process as best as can done.?

Finally, lets not forget to celebrate a job well done!

I submit this in humility and respect.