GOP Tax Bill: What are you going to do with all that cash?

As Donald Trump gets ready to sign the GOP Tax bill, businesses are scrambling to revise budgets and plans accordingly, doing their best to answer the question: “what are you going to do with that extra capital?!” An economic event of this scale is rare, and companies will be looking to maintain their edge and allocate capital strategically. Popular options include raising wages to attract top talent, starting cost optimization projects, exploring new revenue channels, or perhaps even re-hauling business models. effectively they will need a process that is collaborative, flexible, and easy-to-use.

Collaboration is the first key ingredient to ensure that all options are evaluated fairly, and with input from each line of business. With each change potentially impacting multiple areas of the business, it’s important to set top level targets, but also allow each department to have their say on what initiatives/changes would allow them to grow revenue or lower their costs. For example, introducing a new product line could require input from sales on expected revenue, input from operations on expected costs, and perhaps input from HR to get the right teams on the ground. By leveraging knowledge from within the organization, on people who are my knowledgeable in each area, estimates will be more accurate and so will resulting forecasts. 

After each department, has provided input, businesses will need to be flexible in reviewing all the different initiatives, and combining various initiatives to ultimately create multiple versions of the plan. And while it takes organizations significant effort to get to this point, don’t be surprised when these plans need to be changed and altered. A flexible process that allows you to easily make changes and revisions to each plan or even quickly create new ones to do “what-if?” scenarios, is essential to making the right decision on where to allocate funds. Having the ability to see which plans will have the right impact on your financials will allow your company to make well-informed decisions.

Lastly, and most importantly, all these planning activities need to be EASY. Businesses have too often envisioned this level of collaboration and flexibility, but see it all come to a grinding halt due to the sheer volume of spreadsheets floating around, and the time it takes to reconcile and calculate everything. Everyone has important things to do at work, and business should ensure this exercise doesn’t take too much time and effort. Ensure the process is clear by defining exactly which contributors need to provide input, on precisely what data, and in the right sequence. Leverage modern planning tools to collect and manage data inputs, automate calculations, and analyze the numerous versions of the plan. This ensures that the planning activity is engaging, insightful, and end-results are accurate.

The GOP Tax bill is bringing big changes, and companies have the opportunity to strategically manage this influx of capital and use it to ensure their business not only survives, but thrives. An effective end-to-end planning process that is collaborative, flexible, and easy to do will allow your company the chance to make or break itself. At SAP, we are the leaders in digital transformation for companies and have developed solutions that give companies a 100% improvement in time-to-decision and 117% faster ability to create forecasts for their business. I would welcome the chance to have a strategic conversation with you to understand your businesses priorities and how SAP can partner with you to ensure your industry dominance and longevity. In summary, as the late Steve Jobs said "innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

Reach out to me at [email protected] or call 604-647-8322.

Written by Alex Hunter & Phil Houmphan