Today’s world is more complex than ever, making it tougher for finance leaders to plan and analyse business performance. No wonder finance professionals are embracing corporate and business performance management tools to give them sharper insights and a competitive edge. According to BARC and BPM Partners, 80% of organisations now support traditional planning processes with planning products.
What’s more surprising is that 69% of respondents in the same paper admit they still rely on Excel, manually importing and exporting data as if technology has not moved on in 25 years. In an era of volatile markets and overwhelming data volumes, surely it is time to pull the plug on Excel for corporate performance planning?
Beyond Excel
While there is a role for Excel as an individual productivity tool, even to augment a new system, continuing to use it as the primary company-wide planning solution is an outdated approach that isn’t just inefficient – it’s a liability. Adopting a more innovative approach to performance management is crucial.
It allows finance teams to automate data collation and analysis, meaning they can process larger data sets faster to tackle problems and address opportunities proactively.
More importantly, it encourages finance teams to embrace more sophisticated approaches to planning including as highlighted in a recent joint paper from BARC and BPM Partners:
- Strategic planning: as many as 92% of respondents view the integration of strategic, financial and operational planning as high added value or even essential for corporate management. However, just one-third of the companies surveyed (34 percent) have largely or completely integrated strategic and operational short-term planning.
- Using simulations: 51% of organisations reveal it is highly relevant to them to use simulations for better estimation of the impact of important decisions. This is more widespread among large companies compared to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). However over 40% of SMEs plan to embrace simulations in the medium to long-term.
- Value driver-based planning: Asia Pacific (59%) is already much further ahead in embracing this form of business analysis compared to North America (49%) and Europe (40%), which enables organisations to consider cause-and-effect relationships within a business context that affect performance.
- Predictive planning: more than half of the companies surveyed are interested in predictive planning and plan to implement it in the future with respondents suggesting several benefits including the suggestion values that can be included in the budgeting and forecasting process, as well as the validation and quality assurance of manual planning and greater use of internal data.
AI, data, and new opportunities
These approaches to corporate and business performance management open up opportunities to embrace artificial intelligence (AI). In a separate paper from BPM Partners, it references growing interest in machine learning for corporate planning and 90% of companies speaking to the consultancy said that GenAI adds significant value when it can combine operational and financial data.
The same paper outlined four areas in performance management where AI could enhance its capabilities:
- Data Quality: in areas like anomaly detection AI can automate the scanning of diverse data sources to speed up identification of outliers
- Forecast accuracy: again through processing larger amounts of data AI can help to identify the most impactful drivers on forecast, such as historical trends or seasonality
- Process automation: AI can help to reduce human error and avoid mistakes by automating monotonous, complex processes such as inputting data, preparing budgets or producing reports
- Spotting key data and trends: Organisations could use GenAI to spot and surface patterns in data in a more cost-effective manner for further analysis by finance professionals
Performance management: the next evolutionary phase
Performance management is evolving into a powerful strategic force, with 94% of organisations telling BPM Partners that they are looking to integrate operational and financial planning to create a unified view of their performance.
This shift isn’t just about better numbers; it will enable better workforce planning and predictive insights that drive real, transformative growth.
The BARC and BPM Partners paper shows there is an overwhelming acceptance that integrating strategic, financial and operational planning adds significant value for corporate management. At this time, though, only 34% of respondents say they have largely or completely integrated strategic and operational planning, which suggests there is a need for greater urgency to step up transformation efforts.
With senior leaders striving to craft increasingly more agile, forward-thinking strategies , the demand for smarter, more responsive decision-making has never been greater.
If organisations can get their approach right to integrating finance and operations data for a 360-degree view of performance, they will be able to redefine how they unlock growth, optimise for efficiency and stay ahead of the competition. Those who do not embrace change risk being left behind.
Now, about that Excel spreadsheet…
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