How to get buy-in for xP&A across the company
Photo by Mapbox on Unsplash

How to get buy-in for xP&A across the company

This article is sponsored by Jedox. Jedox is a great example of software that is enabling true cross-functional collaboration, helping to join up disconnected planning processes, and expand FP&A beyond the Finance function for true Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A). Learn more about how Jedox can help you go beyond FP&A here.

If FP&A cannot convince other functions that xP&A (Extended Planning & Analysis) is a great idea, then any implementation is going to be unsuccessful. That’s why it’s important to develop a business case and clearly quantify the benefits that can be achieved.

Trust between Finance and other functions needs to be established and relationships built. This takes time and requires Finance to deliver high-quality work and demonstrate how it can contribute to better decision-making.

So it’s perhaps understandable that other functions have concerns when it comes to handing over control of the overall planning and analysis process to Finance. However, there are several strong reasons why Finance is well-placed to drive company-wide planning and analysis. These include:

  • The fact that other functions would need to add considerable new skills to drive the finance aspects of operational planning – taking focus away from their other core objectives 
  • Finance is the only function that has access to and covers the full P&L, recording all activity in the company. Other functions would need to start analyzing details that, at best, are irrelevant to them or, at worst, could lead to internal frustrations 
  • The role of Finance as a neutral/objective facilitator of planning and analysis – demonstrating its role as a co-ordinating business partner, helping other functions to drive the right decisions 

Building an xP&A business case

To demonstrate its commitment to business partnering, any xP&A business case must take a cross-company perspective and not be seen as a pure FP&A initiative. That’s why the finance team needs to engage the rest of the business in an open dialogue about how an xP&A-powered business partnering initiative would work. Any concerns raised need to be addressed before the project gets started.

For example, many companies typically run standard planning cycles that require a broad range of functions across the business to be involved – even if not much has changed since the last planning cycle. It’s a good idea to instigate a service check of your current company-wide planning model. Key questions here could include: 

  • What triggers the planning process in our company? 
  • Which function is the main facilitator of the process? 
  • Do we have common guidelines and principles for everyone to follow? 
  • Is the process collaborative or siloed? 
  • Is the outcome of the process an aligned plan with prioritized actions?

Gathering answers to these questions will help to provide a foundation for establishing xP&A as the new holistic approach that companies should take to planning. Will it be perfect from the start? Probably not, but with continuous improvement, it will eventually strengthen the process across the company, deliver better outcomes, and lead to better decisions and more value created.

To do this well though, Finance will need access to proper tools that can help them facilitate a consistent process across the company. This is where Jedox comes into the picture - being a truly function-agnostic platform. It is just as well suited for sales and operational planning as it is for financial planning.

By putting processes in place from both a data and a decision-making governance perspective, by encouraging a business partnering culture that embraces this approach, by using a platform such as Jedox to enable xP&A activities, and by preparing and training people to put this kind of platform to work, organizations can run robust scenario planning and develop ‘what if?’ scenarios to maximize the opportunities and minimize the risks associated with today’s uncertain business world.

For more articles in my collaboration with Jedox please see below.

What Is xP&A And Why Should You Care?

Why Companies Need To Take A Holistic Approach To FP&A

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

8 Changes For FP&A To Make To Transform Strategy (part of a ten-article series about FP&As involvement in the strategy process)

An Open Letter To The CFO: Are You Ready To Transform FP&A?

The Future of FP&A – Two Ways To Take the Reins

All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders"   (part of a five-article series where we unfold our business partnering capability model)

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on our business partnering framework "BP on a Formula" )

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?

Building A Team Of Finance Business Partners

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 9,500 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 60.000+ followers.

Bubba Carter

Dynamic Pricing Analyst » Financial Forecasting Fanatic » Disc Golfer🥏 ⇨ Helping Organizations Maximize Profits

3y

Great read! I believe that larger companies, and possibly medium and small businesses as well, should consider establishing a division or team of objective P&A specialists. This division would serve as the mediator, messenger, and strategy advisor for all other functions within the company. This division would allow Finance teams to focus and specialize in financial matters, management teams to focus on management strategies, and marketing teams to focus on marketing. It seems as though analyzing and interpreting a program like Jedox would be the primary activity for a division like the one I mentioned.

Olukemi Adeoye

CFO| Business Growth Adviser|Board Member |

3y

Thanks for sharing and introducing the concept of extended Planning and Analysis. I believe communication to other functions within an organisation in the language they understand is key

Christian Wattig

Director Wharton FP&A Certificate Program | Corporate FP&A Trainer | ex. P&G, Unilever, Squarespace | 100k Finance Audience

3y

Thanks for sharing this. The point on FP&A being well suited to lead planning because they are a neutral / objective party specifically resonated with me. At times, goals of a given department can be a bit narrow - the sales department prioritizing volume over profit or the marketing team driving impressions at the cost of efficiency. I think an important aspect of FP&A’s role is to create the right balance between the different objectives of the company.

To view or add a comment, sign in

Insights from the community

Explore topics