FP&A Solutions Toolkit

Stefano Peroni

FP&A Solutions Toolkit for Partners - A collection of materials and collaterals for Financial Planning and Analysis.

Target Audience

• Decision Maker (Economic buyer): Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer
• Level 1 Influencer (Champion): VP/Director of FP&A, VP/Director of Controlling, VP/Director of IT, Divisional CFO
• Level 2 Influencer (Key user): Finance Manager, Group Controller, Financial Controller, Finance Transformation Manager

Problem

Margins are shrinking, profitability is harder to achieve, and businesses are put at risk due to external factors such as inflation, interest rates, and higher uncertainty.

In uncertain times, FP&A is expected to enhance the Finance department's ability to steer performance by effectively managing cash flow, making the best use of capital, and facilitating planning and controlling of budgets to ensure the organization's strategic goals are accomplished.

But with an outdated process, FP&A teams are not equipped with the tools to support their organizations proficiently.

They can, at best, analyze actual performance but don't have the ability to perform complex scenario modeling that incorporates external factors. They must also react at the speed of the market, make changes on the fly, and deliver real-time views of performance.

Solution

Intelligent Planning gives finance leaders the power to drive growth and profitability, manage risk and lead transformation with game-changing FP&A and unified decision-making across finance, strategy and operations.

Elevator Pitch

Board Intelligent Platforms helps Finance teams connect, organize and analyze data by providing a unique work environment that standardize processes, and allowing people to collaborate to produce accurate views of the financial health of their business, and supporting better decision making.

Core Use Cases

• Strategic and long-term planning
• Budgeting planning & forecasting
• Capital & resources planning
• Management reporting & analytics

External Pressures

• Raw material and energy price increase trimming down margins
• Lack of accurate and real-time views prevents from identifying gaps and creating efficiencies
• Timing is essential in many industries
• Market needs and consumers habits evolving, need for modernization to stay ahead of competition

Office of Finance Challenges

1. Time and effort: A single cascading annual, quarterly, and monthly planning cycle takes too long to complete. Activities are mainly manual, and most staff time is spent on non-value-added activities.
2. Spreadsheets and legacy systems: Excel spreadsheets are still widely used for data collection, plan submission, and performance reporting.
3. Data & analytics: Multiple versions of the truth cause a lack of confidence from decision-makers. Reporting & analytics are focused on past performance.
4. Misalignment of financial and operational processes: Financial and operational planning processes are often substantially disconnected, generated from different systems by different people, and with different objectives.
5. Predictability: Planning doesn't work beyond the span of predictability. Forecasts cannot account for unexpected events, and planners are incapable of evaluating the impact of risks and opportunities.

Industry Challenges

Retail	Manufacturing	CPG
• High seasonality requires planning for fluctuations in demand sales and inventory • Inventory turnover requires managing inventory level efficiently • Promotions and discounts impacts need to be continuously assessed and validated to ensure profitability • Multiple sales channels require integrated strategies for improved performance and seamless customer experience • Customer behaviors and preferences require mature data and analytics strategies for efficient decision-making	• Intricate cost structures involving raw materials, labor, overheads, and production costs • Inventory management for raw material and work-in-progress stock requires accurate demand forecasting • Production planning optimization requires forecasting production volume and resource allocation • Significant capital expenditures require continuous evaluation of the investments and their impacts • Complex supply chain dynamics need to be considered to ensure continuity and mitigate risks	• Demand variability requires sophisticated forecasting models • Short product lifecycles require constant performance monitoring and adjustments • Trade promotions and marketing require constant investment to drive sales • Supply Chain complexity requires continuous cost monitoring and optimization • Multiple distribution channels require ad-hoc strategies to manage pricing, margins an

Key Features

• Data integration and transparency
• AI & advanced analytics
• Driver based planning
• Industry-specific models
• Automated workflows and collaboration
• Align finance and operations

Benefits

• Accelerate planning cycles
• Control costs and resources
• Generate actionable insights
• Drive margins and profitability
• Make data-driven, forward looking decisions

Why Board is Unique

Unified approach for planning, consolidation, and reporting: unique value proposition in the market where we're merging actuals into plan data to generate accurate, real-time, integrated view of the plan's financial impacts.

Unique Capabilities

• Future-proof platform: Board can customize to your needs today and evolve with your in the future; no need to rebuild the solution to integrate new drivers, processes, or source systems.
• Data integration, single source of truth: Board provides a fit-for-purpose solution for planning that can seamlessly integrate into your existing ecosystem.
• Ease of use and scalability of the platform across use cases. One platform, many use cases (and they are not standalone!)

Customer References

Retail	Manufacturing	CPG	Others
Decathlon M&S The Cheesecake -Factory El Corte Ingles SA Villeroy & Boch Fat Face Limited EDEKA Conad Carrefour Next Level Apparel ImagineX Conrad	VW Group of America Saint-Gobain Glass Mitsubishi Electric Cornerstone Building Brands Toyota Motor Europe Tetrapak International Groupe Michelin Webasto SE Komatsu Europe Int. Phoenix Contact OTC	Coca-Cola European Partners Ajinomoto CO Mahou San Miguel Granarolo Spa Zentiva Group Zydus Pharma AB Mauri Food Inc Bauli Spa Kirin Andros Theo Muller Haleon	HSBC Bank PLC Capitec Bank Ltd Caixa Bank Nationwide US Navy La Poste Hapag-Lloyd PwC Eversource Energy Odido HH Global KPMG

Customer Quotes

Customer	Quote
Coca-Cola European Partners	"We now consolidate in seconds….” "Board has allowed us to evolve our “classic” planning methodology into Driver-Based Planning, whilst ensuring standardization, automation and ease of use."
Toyota Motor Europe	"In the COVID-19 situation, Board enabled us to create multiple versions of budgets and multiple forecasts. Normally we would have only had quarterly forecasts."
Volkswagen	"The Office of Finance reports that the tremendous improvement in processes, accuracy and visibility in the finance strategy efficacy, combined with cost savings & improved accuracy of their planning data, has reaped an increase in efficiencies from 57% to 91% thanks to Board"
Odido (formerly T-Mobile Netherlands)	"Thanks to Board, our financial team has evolved from a number cruncher into a real business partner, able to drive performance in a turbulent environment."
Eversource	"Board has given our team a single, corporate-wide desktop environment to access financial and transactional level details in near real-time."
Tetrapak	"Our primary focus was to implement a solution for our financial planning processes. But, looking at the tool, we immediately realized that it is not just a financial planning tool, it is a tool that can support decision-making."

Discovery Questions

• Do you typically do more than one round of budgets each year? How long does it take to complete?
• Are you able to forecast on a regular basis? If not, why?
• Do you use spreadsheets in your budgeting process? Why?
• Are you spending lots of time collecting and organizing data rather than analyzing it?
• What do you like and what would you change about your current budgeting system and process?
• How quickly after close are you able to get updated actual-budget-variance financial statements and reports to users?
• Are you are able to get information to decision makers for them to course correct in time to impact the business?

See the FP&A Playbook for detailed DC Questions by process areas.

Key Assets

The Key Assets of the FP&A Toolkit are stored in a dedicated folder in our Partner Library.

Click here to access the FP&A Solution Toolkit folder.