Agile planning makes room for development and progress from limited insight and hindsight to a good scenario planning among finance leaders.
As organisations deal with various possibilities and try to determine which one has the potential to disrupt and damage the business, the constraint in time can be detrimental in the business over all.
If finance leaders will learn to rely on unified, cloud-based planning systems that can iterate multiple what-if scenarios to identify the most likely outcomes and the most effective actions, it can be proven helpful, if not a breakthrough, for the organisation as a whole.
Scenario planning identifies the potential impact of risks—and opportunities—on the company’s finances and operations, allowing businesses to answer questions such as:
- How would the company handle a drop in consumer demand?
- In case of a revenue shortfall, what happens if the organisation accelerates its hiring plan to reduce the gap between staffing and the revenue target?
- What impact does a revenue shortfall have on other aspects of the financial plan such as cash flow and expenses?
Rather than relying on gut instinct, guesswork, and outdated information, finance leaders can instead be better prepared and equipped to respond to change.
From static to continuous planning
Businesses now must be able to adjust assumptions and pivot on the fly based on changing market conditions. This ability to model and analyse every contingency and spot gaps and opportunities necessitates a move from static to continuous planning.
Continuous planning harnesses all the financial and operational data into a single source of truth for always-available, always-current data. By adjusting budgets and forecasts not just annually but continually, companies can leverage this up-to-the-minute information to make the right moves at the right times.
From siloed to real-time data
Finance leaders can only drive scenarios and continuous planning if they can access accurate, real-time data. This can be made possible through accessing more data available from more sources.
But to account for all that data in their large and increasingly complex planning models, organisations cannot depend on siloed data sources. Busting data silos can pay real dividends.
Modern planning technology harnesses all of an organisation’s real-time financial and operational data—from enterprise resource planning (ERP) to human capital management (HCM) and customer relationship management (CRM)—into a single cloud-based platform. By embracing data-driven planning, companies can achieve deeper insights, adapt at scale, and gain control of their futures.
From reactive to predictive solutions
Relying on modern, machine learning-embedded planning solutions allows for faster data collection across data sources, allowing information to be visible across the entire organisation. When all functions share the same, accurate information and insight, it results in faster, more reliable, and more accurate planning.
More automated data gathering and reconciliation also transforms the reporting process from a rote exercise to a dynamic, ongoing driver of organisational change.
With agile planning, companies are no longer caught in a game of catch up. Instead, they have the chance to anticipate change and quickly coordinate a response at scale, even in the face of sudden disruption.
