Are you living in a complex planning and reporting environment? If so, how are you managing this?
All too often the finance team simply throws more effort/hours at the problem with the hope that it will be solved down the line. Unfortunately, this seldom happens.
Planning and reporting environments are getting increasingly complex. The C-suite wants more frequent and dynamic scenario analysis and shorter cycle times for both. Stakeholders have changing financial, ESG and operating reporting requirements and the cost of the finance function is coming under increased scrutiny.
My experience is that it is critical to invest the time and effort in the correct process and tools to automate as much of this process as possible.
Have a vision and a plan
While this may sound easy, the first step is to have a vision of what you want your reporting to be, a good understanding of all your current and anticipated reporting requirements, the data you need and a plan on how to organise it.
Get stuff done – maximise return on effort
Once you have your vision and plan you can break the pieces of work into smaller, digestible, chunks where you get the best return on effort. Being disciplined and getting work done frees up time for the next implementation. Pretty soon you have built an unstoppable flywheel of planning and reporting improvement.
Tooling and process – a long-term view
Planning and reporting tools are long term investments. Within reason, they need to meet your current and anticipated reporting requirements. Getting the best value for money and effort means you can spend more time on tools, process and refinement and less on procurement and implementation.
Refinement – listen and learn
Often, the exhausting process of an implementation, and the reality of getting stuff done, means that people limp over the project finish line with many of the initial use cases not fully met. This does not mean they should be neglected. Items not delivered should give guidance on future development, but this should be complemented by user feedback on the existing system.
Listening and learning how people truly interact with the system is invaluable. This sometimes means hearing some hard truths. It is better if an independent professional undertakes this. I find independent UI/UX skills invaluable in this space. It also ensures that feedback is honest and fair.
Sell the benefits
Benefits of an implementation should be self-evident to the finance team; however, report users may not fully understand or appreciate what is involved.
To ensure the long-term support for the process and system and its continued development, all stakeholders need an appropriate understanding of how the puzzle pieces fall together, their role and the benefit of the implementation. As the process owner this is part of your role.
This supportive environment embeds planning and reporting and its process and tools into the fabric of the business.
A recipe for clear, insightful, data driven decision making.
