What’s getting in the way of great FP&A performance?

FP&A teams perform vital functions across complex businesses. And yet their work is often hampered. Not by something immovable or unsolvable, but by something we all need to have better control of – data.

The very nature of FP&A work means that you are reliant on the right data going into your forecasts. You don’t just need accurate data – you need it at the right time, and from the right place. When the data is unreliable, or even unavailable, it affects your ability to forecast accurately. And that can have a significant knock-on effect to the business.

There are five key elements to top-notch FP&A performance:

• Data accuracy and completeness?
• Integrating data from multiple systems?
• Data timeliness?
• Ability to support faster decision making in times of change?
• Accuracy and robustness of planning and forecasting

This in turn helps teams to deliver what the business needs:

·?????? Evaluating if current assets and investments are appropriate??

·?????? Understanding overall financial health?

·?????? Looking at which products or services have the best margins?

·?????? Demonstrating which products generate the most profit?

·?????? Cost-efficiency for each department?

·?????? Detailed budgeting and forecasting?

·?????? Maintaining good financial models?

·?????? Supporting senior leaders with regular reporting?

·?????? Performing variance analysis?

·?????? Scenario planning – looking for opportunities for growth?

Gartner identified the top 5 AI use cases for FP&A leaders to think about. The Gartner research team felt that these should be the first priority for FP&A teams bringing AI into their organisations – and it was important to get them right before moving onto other processes.

We think that’s right – introducing AI into your team is best done on a step-by-step basis. So identifying the most important use case for your organisation is a vital first step. Gartner’s top 5 use cases are:

·?????? Demand/Revenue Forecasting

·?????? Anomaly and Error Detection

·?????? Decision Support

·?????? POC Revenue Forecasting

·?????? Cash Collections

You can see how Gartner organises this in their table below:

Which of these use cases is most relevant to your business? What’s holding you back? If you know that you could improve the performance of your FP&A team by introducing the latest technology, and you can see that these use cases are relevant to you, then now is a good time to see how you could introduce AI into your team with minimal disruption and minimal cost – to see what difference it can make.

Harnessing the power of augmented intelligence

At Insight Delivered, we talk about ‘augmented’ intelligence, rather than artificial intelligence. That’s because we don’t believe in replacing people with computers – we believe in harnessing the power of technology to make finance processes faster, more accurate and more useful. Working alongside your teams, it amplifies the human intelligence in your department, and frees up FP&A teams, finance staff and CFOs to become wealth creators rather than wealth managers. It’s a step change for finance – and it’s one that everyone will be getting on board with – so what’s stopping you?

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