规划一条通往现代金融的道路

Maintaining a status quo approach to financial planning is inadequate for today’s volatile world. Relying primarily on historical data, minor adjustments, and manual aggregation is a recipe for disaster. This approach is not only resource intensive, but it’s prone to immediate outdating, rife with errors, and an inaccurate representation of the business today and where it needs to go tomorrow. It also limits visibility into every facet of performance, only taking into consideration the data individuals choose to —or are able to — share. Yesterday’s financial planning standard also puts finance leaders in the unenviable role as a “record keeper,” holding on to manual work, hundreds of spreadsheets, and legacy IT processes. This makes it nearly impossible to deliver timely, reliable business insights. 

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Are you a record keeper? Here are some commonly shared traits: 

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• Static, predictable processes that don’t allow for unforeseen deviations when there is business disruption  
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• Lack of timely, reliable business insights from across the organization where the information resides 
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• Limited ability to reconcile data from multiple data sources  
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If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s not an uncommon situation for most organizations. Many finance leaders find themselves stuck in record keeper mode as performing the necessary plans and forecasts is so arduous, it doesn’t leave time for exploration of other tools or process improvements – it’s a vicious cycle of wanting to change but struggling to find capacity. 

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If record keeping is your status quo, it’s time to chart a path to more effective, modern financial planning and forecasting.  

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Cross-departmental partnership and efficient operations are early steps of modernization 

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Even if being a record keeper feels functional, the fact remains: Limited lines of sight hinder the entire organization. Without open lines of communication and data sharing, each department is subject to uninformed decision-making and misalignment to organizational goals and targets. Aligning all corners of the business around overarching strategy creates progress, and from there, opportunities for finance leaders to drive efficiency and collaboration emerge. 

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The efficient operator 

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Investments in process automation and access to information has been the focus for many finance leaders who are pressured to make insightful decisions quickly. Efficient operators benefit from the ability to have fast and reliable processes, however, they’re still challenged by the inability to align objectives, plans, and tactics across the organization. 

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This progress in operations but stagnation in collaboration happens because many moves toward digitization are focused on efficiency. This makes sense as it frees up analysts from the million-spreadsheet march and allows them time for more analytics. But transformational leaders can also start making moves toward being a partner across the business and aligning their processes for better outcomes overall. 

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Finance is historically a lone wolf within the organization, as the collectors of information with imposed deadlines and the ultimate authority to approve or reject plans. This is key to why the efficient operator still needs to move toward shared ownership of outcomes and visibility into strategic targets and how each component of the value chain is critical for success. Connection builds bridges between finance and cross-functional stakeholders. 

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The analytics partner 

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On the other side of the coin, there are finance leaders who have evolved the function from record keeper to analytics partner. Where efficient operators made strides toward improved processes, analytics partners focused on improving data sharing across the company. 

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This evolution aims to share data from all parts of the organization and allows finance and other stakeholders to collaborate on decisions using performance indicators from across the business. It adds strong business insight, improves partnership across the business, drives accountability, and better addresses the impact of possible moves. This cross-functional visibility and shared ownership provides an opportunity for finance to shine and create value across the organization. These partnerships require trust in information and the belief that collaboration will lead to both accuracy and confidence in the data being used for improved decision-making. 

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These changes are a step in the right direction but aren’t a total course-correction for modern finance. It is the intersection of data, people, and processes that meet the new mission of finance to drive revenue, improve margins, optimize resources, and mitigate risks. This melding of capabilities across these areas truly differentiates the transformational finance leader from the competition and creates the foundation for agility, future readiness, and organizational success. 

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Market differentiators create businesses with the biggest competitive advantage. 

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To really transform legacy financial planning and forecasting into the future of finance, leaders need to become market differentiators. This role takes the improvements that both the efficient operators and analytics partners made from the traditional record keeper role, and addresses the challenges still faced by both. There are some key things the market differentiator does to transform finance. 

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Automate core FP&A processes 

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After evolving manual FP&A processes to automated systems, these leaders can use the time savings to adopt best practices such as: 

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• Leverage advanced forecasting methods, such as driver-based, rolling, demand-based, and more. 
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• Identify leading indicators and impact.
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• Monitor operational data versus exclusively financial data. 
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• Evolve the planning process to be dynamic and continuous versus calendar-driven. 
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• Evaluate a plan and perform a reforecast when there’s a market event like a competitive move, supply chain disruption, or regulatory change. 
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• Create an environment of planning as a strategic tool versus a necessary quarterly task to be performed half-heartedly. 
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Link automated processes to specialty plans  

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Once core financial processes are automated, it’s easier to link them to more specialized planning. For instance, the following can become part and parcel of the financial planning process rather than time-exhausting “extras:” 

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• Pricing modeling and scenarios 
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• Profitability and margin analysis 
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• Zero-based budgeting 
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• Liquidity modeling and cash flow forecasting  
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Connect finance to sales, supply chain, and operations 

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This is where transformational finance leaders actually transform the culture of the organization. By connecting finance to the other stakeholders in the company, regardless of department, the market challenger is able to: 

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• Break down silos. 
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• Operate as one team focused and aligned on strategic targets. 
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• Share responsibility for not just respective business units, but the whole organization. 
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• Find ways to open lines of communication for data-sharing, agile decision-making, and joint responsibility for financial results. 
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By taking steps to move from a frustrated record keeper to a transformational market differentiator, finance leaders can bring their organizations to a new era of financial planning that leads their business to the forefront of the market.  

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The technology exists. Become a market differentiator before it’s too late. 

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Truly modern financial planning goes well beyond automation. Technology is now advanced enough to support real-time data sharing, align and involve stakeholders for current insight, enable machine learning for intelligent predictions, model “what-if” scenarios for impact and possible contingencies, and much more. With the path to modern finance laid out before you, the technology is there to usher you through the journey. The time is now to adopt the technology necessary to bring the business into the future. Are you on the path to becoming a market differentiator? 

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在当今动荡的世界，维持现状的财务规划方法是不够的。主要依赖历史数据、微小的调整和手动聚合是导致灾难的原因。这种方法不仅是资源密集型的，而且容易立即过时，充满错误，并且不能准确地表示今天的业务和明天的业务发展方向。它还限制了对性能各个方面的可见性，只考虑个人选择或能够共享的数据。过去的财务规划标准还将财务主管置于令人羡慕的“记录保管员”角色，坚持手工工作、数百个电子表格和遗留的IT流程。这使得交付及时、可靠的业务洞察几乎不可能。

你是记录员吗?以下是一些共同的特征:

• 静态的、可预测的流程，在业务中断时不允许出现不可预见的偏差
• 缺乏来自信息所在组织的及时、可靠的业务洞察
• 调和来自多个数据源的数据的能力有限

如果这听起来很熟悉，那是因为这对大多数组织来说并不罕见。许多财务主管发现自己陷入了记录管理员模式，因为执行必要的计划和预测是如此艰巨，以至于没有时间去探索其他工具或流程改进——这是一个想要改变但又难以找到能力的恶性循环。

如果保持记录是你的现状，那么是时候制定一条更有效、更现代的财务规划和预测之路了。

跨部门合作和高效运作是现代化的早期步骤

即使作为一个记录员感觉很有用，事实仍然是:有限的视线阻碍了整个组织。如果没有开放的沟通和数据共享渠道，每个部门都会做出不知情的决策，与组织的目标和目标不一致。围绕总体战略调整业务的各个方面可以创造进步，从而为财务领导者提供提高效率和协作的机会。

高效操作者

对流程自动化和信息访问的投资一直是许多财务主管关注的焦点，他们被迫快速做出有见地的决策。高效的运营商受益于快速可靠的流程，然而，他们仍然面临着无法在整个组织中协调目标、计划和策略的挑战。

这种运营方面的进步，但协作方面的停滞，是因为许多迈向数字化的举措都专注于效率。这是有道理的，因为它将分析师从百万电子表格的行军中解放出来，让他们有时间进行更多的分析。但变革型领导者也可以开始采取行动，成为整个企业的合作伙伴，并调整他们的流程，以获得更好的整体结果。

从历史上看，财务部门在组织中是一只独狼，作为信息的收集者，有规定的最后期限，并拥有批准或拒绝计划的最终权力。这就是为什么高效的运营商仍然需要朝着成果共享和战略目标可见性的方向发展，以及价值链的每个组成部分对成功至关重要的关键。连接在财务和跨职能利益相关者之间建立桥梁。

分析合作伙伴

另一方面，有些财务主管的职能已经从记录保管员转变为分析合作伙伴。高效的运营商在改进流程方面取得了长足的进步，而分析合作伙伴则专注于改善整个公司的数据共享。

这种演变旨在共享来自组织所有部分的数据，并允许财务和其他利益相关者使用来自整个业务的绩效指标进行决策协作。它增加了强大的业务洞察力，改善了跨业务的伙伴关系，推动了问责制，并更好地解决了可能的行动的影响。这种跨职能的可见性和共享所有权为财务提供了在整个组织中发光并创造价值的机会。这些伙伴关系需要对信息的信任，并相信合作将导致对用于改进决策的数据的准确性和信心。

这些变化是朝着正确方向迈出的一步，但并不是对现代金融的彻底修正。它是数据、人员和流程的交叉点，满足财务的新使命，即推动收入、提高利润率、优化资源和降低风险。这种跨这些领域的能力融合真正将转型财务领导者与竞争对手区分开来，并为敏捷性、未来准备和组织成功奠定基础。

市场差异化创造了具有最大竞争优势的企业。

要真正将传统的财务规划和预测转变为金融的未来，领导者需要成为市场的差异化者。这一角色继承了高效作业者和分析合作伙伴对传统记录保管员角色的改进，并解决了两者仍然面临的挑战。市场差异化因素在改变金融方面有一些关键作用。

自动化核心FP&A流程

在将手动FP&A流程演变为自动化系统之后，这些领导者可以利用节省的时间来采用最佳实践，例如:

• 利用先进的预测方法，如基于驱动、滚动、基于需求等。
• 确定领先指标和影响。
• 监控运营数据，而不仅仅是财务数据。
• 将计划过程演变为动态和连续的，而不是日历驱动的。
• 当出现市场事件，如竞争变动、供应链中断或监管变化时，评估计划并进行重新预测。
• 创造一种环境，将计划作为一种战略工具，而不是半心半意地完成一项必要的季度任务。

将自动化流程与专业计划联系起来

一旦核心财务流程实现自动化，就更容易将它们与更专业的规划联系起来。例如，以下事项可以成为财务规划过程的重要组成部分，而不是耗费时间的“额外事项”:

• 定价建模和场景
• 盈利能力和利润率分析
• 从零开始的预算
• 流动性建模和现金流预测

将财务与销售、供应链和运营联系起来

这就是变革型财务领导者真正改变组织文化的地方。通过将财务与公司的其他利益相关者联系起来，无论部门如何，市场挑战者都能够:

• 打破藩篱。
• 作为一个专注于战略目标的团队运作。
• 不仅要为各自的业务部门分担责任，还要为整个组织分担责任。
• 找到打开数据共享、敏捷决策和共同负责财务结果的沟通渠道的方法。

通过采取措施，从一个沮丧的记录保管员转变为一个转型的市场差异化者，财务领导者可以将他们的组织带入一个财务规划的新时代，从而引领他们的业务走向市场的前沿。

这项技术是存在的。在一切还来得及之前，成为市场的差异化者。

真正的现代财务规划远不止自动化。现在的技术已经足够先进，可以支持实时数据共享，协调利益相关者并让他们参与当前的见解，使机器学习能够进行智能预测，为影响和可能的突发事件建立“假设”情景模型，等等。随着通往现代金融的道路在你面前铺开，技术将引领你走过这段旅程。现在是时候采用必要的技术将业务带入未来。你正走在成为市场差异化者的道路上吗?