With summer vacations behind them, many FP&A professionals will be sitting down at their desks wondering what they can do to improve their upcoming annual budgeting processes. Their top concerns are likely to include maintaining a tight grip on costs and working capital while striving to improve the accuracy of their budget and cash flow… read more →
Based on decades of experience working with and writing about financial software, independent expert Richard Barrett has provided his personal observations on a recent Gartner Magic Quadrant. The opinions expressed are his own. Leading analyst firm Gartner recently published its annual Magic Quadrant for Cloud Strategic Corporate Performance Management (SCPM) solutions. According to its authors,… read more →
Before global positioning systems (GPS) made navigation foolproof, hikers or sailors wanting to identify their exact location would take two or more compass bearings on prominent landmarks and plotted their intersection. They would never have dreamed of using a single bearing to plot their location because this left an unacceptable degree of error—and perhaps risked… read more →
In the first piece in this two-part series, we looked at how companies that report to U.S. GAAP and IFRS standards need to address the requirements of Accounting Standards Codification 606 (ASC 606) about reporting sales commissions paid on subscription services and goods. Many, but not all, of these commissions and incentives need to be… read more →
When Accounting Standard Codification 606 (ASC 606) was first announced in 2014, public companies that sell goods or services on a subscription basis and report to U.S. GAAP and IFRS standards had more than 40 months to switch over their revenue recognition processes. That window is closing as the new standards come into force at… read more →
In the first article in this series I looked at the reasons why the new, more flexible form of zero-based budgeting (ZBB 2.0) is enjoying a renaissance; in the second piece, I explored what makes it different. In this, the final blog of the series, I’ll summarize the more important best practices that today’s practitioners… read more →
Pruning doesn’t just cut a plant down to size. Removing old wood/stems/leaves stimulates new growth and encourages fruiting and flowering, keeping the plant young and healthy. The same is true of the new approach to zero-based budgeting (ZBB 2.0), which is no longer just about cutting back costs, but about right-sizing today’s businesses to free… read more →
Kellogg Co., Heinz, the Campbell Soup Company, Mondelez International, Alcoa Inc., The Boston Scientific Corp., Jarden Corporation, Quiksilver, Inc., and a host of other large multinationals from a broad spectrum of industries have all gone on record as having adopted a 40-year-old methodology—zero-based budgeting (ZBB). And many of them are pushing ZBB even further, using… read more →
PwC’s recently published Annual CEO Survey shows that to gain a competitive advantage, the majority of business leaders plan to use technology to provide a better customer experience. They also plan to improve operational processes so their businesses are more agile and responsive. In this second part of the series, we look at how U.S…. read more →
Over 80 percent of finance leaders still rely on 10 or more spreadsheets to support their mission critical planning processes. That’s the astonishing feedback Anaplan received when this question was posed to an audience of over 100 finance leaders at the Chief Financial Leadership Office Forum in Los Angeles, CA, a few weeks ago—see the… read more →