Today, organisations experience more and more difficulties in planning and decision making. Internally from stretching resources and externally from rapid market changes. On the other hand, there are also quite some opportunities regarding Planning, Budgeting, Forecasting and Decision Making. Here, we highlight 5 Top Trends in Planning & Forecasting.
Scenario Planning
Traditional planning cannot keep pace with the demands of the modern market. Spreadsheet-based processes are time-consuming, and projected results are complex to derive. Adopting an agile scenario planning solution enables accuracy and speed when modelling potential strategies. Businesses can quickly run several scenarios (such as best case, worst case, or most likely case, aligned to current trends) to determine which route is the best to take. Embedding scenario plans in business-wide planning and analytics processes empowers leaders to define strategies that deal with the uncertainties of the current market. If the best-case plan does not follow the modelled path, the business already has viable alternative pathways in place.
XP&A
With XP&A (eXtended Planning & Analytics), finance becomes integral to gaining a complete picture of organizational performance and for other teams to understand and have accountability for how activities affect financial performance. XP&A includes, among others:
- Expanding a single set of planning and analysis principles across the company
- Collaborating and breaking down silos between departments in the planning process
- Having a single, integrated planning platform in place
- Moving way beyond traditional planning systems and out-of-date spreadsheet models
AI & ML
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are terms often passed around when discussing technology and planning capabilities. Despite their popularity, many people fail to understand what AI & ML can genuinely offer in Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting.
AI & ML continue to increase in power as machines’ computational capabilities rapidly improve. The value of both is in how it increases the interactions between people and technological solutions to make them more natural and immediate.
With AI, planning can become simpler, quicker and more accurate. For example, AI can:
- Provide real-time insight into marketplace changes to help guide more accurate forecasting activities
- Help cut through the incredibly high volumes of data that enterprises have are their fingertips in the modern setting
- Enhance automation by learning and building rule-based and recurring tasks without any need for manual intervention
- Effectively bridge the gap between analysis and forecasting to provide businesses with immediate, actionable plans
Also, have a look what our partners, Board AI and Jedox AI have created with AI to further improve planning.
Planning at market speed
Businesses today must reshape planning processes to adopt change at the same pace as the market. Adopting the right technologies here is key to making this a reality. Enterprises need the ability to properly utilize data to enhance planning and analysis and give decision-makers across the organization everything they need to react quickly and with confidence. The idea is to plan faster and more often to have better insights in decision making.
No coding, Automation & Cloud
Last, but not least, we have gathered three IT topics in one Top Trend:
- A No-Code (or Low-Code) enables organisations to design and implement faster and create more collaboration between teams and departments. More time is spent at this level to add greater agility and productivity to the business.
- Automating more and more Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting tasks, such as data management, has proven to be an effective way to improve productivity.
- Businesses using Cloud solutions to streamline processes, have better access to their data and tools, and drive Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting activities from the one place. This is advantageous when the planning system extends across the business.
Summary
The need for businesses to accelerate their transformation efforts across (but not limited to) Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting processes is clear. At its core, these initiatives will enhance businesses with greater agility in a competitive and unpredictable marketplace.
With so much at stake, the time is now for enterprises to implement the 5 Top Trends in Planning and Forecasting with an intelligent planning solution (like Board or Jedox) that meets the demands of today.
