The Future of Planning Budgeting and Forecasting Survey 2016 was completed by more than 955 senior finance members from across the globe, making it one of the largest and most authoritative studies of its kind. And it confirms once again that wherever finance professionals happen to be situated in the world and no matter what industries they serve, we all share the same ambitions and hurdles.
As modern finance professionals, we are facing some of the most demanding and challenging conditions for decades as we strive to be better business partners. Our ability to deliver dependable business forecasts, optimise the allocation of resources and steer the business to new heights of performance, agility and competitiveness remain central to our professional standing with the rest of the C-suite. Yet more than more than 50% of us struggle to forecast beyond 6 months, more than 60% still can’t forecast revenue to within plus or minus 5% and almost half of us take more than a week to reforecast earnings.
But encouragingly the survey shines a light on the way forward, namely;
- Making better use of non-financial data and forward looking indicators
- Developing greater specialisation and expertise in FP&A along with the enabling tools
- Placing greater emphasis on process redesign before deploying in the cloud
- Transitioning to a culture of continuous planning
- Widening the net of PBF to include more stakeholders from other business functions.