Unknown Speaker 0:00:05.5: 

Our next session in the gala is Retail's Original Influencer: how finance will shape what's next. Please welcome Matt from Spaulding Ridge, Kim, financial transformation leader, and Lindsay from Anaplan.  

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:00:20.3: 

Awesome. Hi, everybody. I'm Lindsay DiPietro. I lead our retail applications here at Anaplan, and I have the privilege of moderating this session. So, Kim, you want to introduce yourself?  

 

Kim Castro 0:00:33.2: 

Yes, sure. Kim Castro, finance leader. Recently retired, so only a couple of weeks, but prior to my retirement, I spent the majority of my career in the retail space at CVS Health and then at Gap Inc.. So happy to be here. Thank you for having me.  

 

Matt Cain 0:00:53.7:  

Testing. Okay, I just want to go on record saying I didn't get a cool lapel mic. Nice to meet everyone. Matt Cain from Spaulding Ridge, a partner in our finance and operations practice, so work with organizations primarily on their financial transformation journeys with Anaplan and the value that they look to get out of it. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:01:13.5: 

Awesome. So let's kick this off. Let's start with the really lofty topic of finance transformation. It can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, depending on the industry that you're in or who's even running the initiative. So, Matt, how are you seeing how you would define finance transformation and what are you seeing in the market? 

 

Matt Cain 0:01:41.2: 

So I think maybe more generally a couple areas, and then Kim, you can dive in maybe more on the Gap and CVS side. I think a lot of places we look, I mean, these programs originate from within finance called finance transformations, of course, but I think what the technology affords is, what is the value add that finance wants to have at a departmental, at a divisional level, and then a corporate, what are the data points that you're adding? What's the analysis that you're adding? I think, Kim, you have a great term, I think in a lot of organizations, finance is a scorekeeper. They're at the end of the process, and yes, they're looking at the usual suspects; budgets, forecasts, long range plans; and they're a steward of the data getting collected. They make sure it rolls up properly and they make sure obviously the reports are sound and are going to the right people. Beyond that, that'll become table stakes with the technology with Anaplan. So let's get back to, what is the strategic partner value add from finance to the business, what are the problems that we're looking to solve or the questions that we're looking to answer on top of getting faster, getting more streamlined in our budget forecast and long range plan process, let's talk about the additional value add we want to go for.  

 

Matt Cain 0:03:03.7: 

I don't think there's a set answer that we see every finance organization going for. I think you don't want to boil the ocean, but I think with Anaplan, we're definitely getting very specific and very intentional. What do you want to be the finance team of? What insights are you adding? Do you want to do more cost benchmarking? Do you need to do more ranges on guidance? Do you need to do more simulations and scenarios? Which we've heard a lot of teams talk about today. What is it that that you want to add value on? I think that the secondary piece of what finance transformation means a lot to finance teams now is definitely leaning in more on data. You're going to need good data, the right grain, and you're going to need to be able to create context of data for not only these processes and this analysis, but you're getting ready for the wave of AI agents that will come. So I think we're seeing more and more finance teams becoming data teams, and what it means to be self-serve used to be just running the reports that you wanted when you wanted. Now being self-serve means that I can create the data context as I need to on the fly and I have the ability to do the data modelling. I'm not just running these monolithic reports.  

 

Matt Cain 0:04:28.1: 

 

So we're seeing finance teams, I think, lean into what was maybe traditionally more data and IT, in that domain, because they have to add the context to get the insights, and it moves so quickly. I think with years prior, the report may be obsolete by the time it was built and we didn't have a chain of insights delivery that was fast enough. So I think what finance transformation means to a lot of finance teams now is becoming the owners of the data and going further back in the data life cycle, and Anaplan is a tool that's very conducive to that. We're looking to put this modelling capability in the business. So I think those are two things that we see a lot of, of late. Kim, I know Gap was very focused on the finance team becoming the team of trend analytics, cost benchmarking, and let's raise the bar here on the major cost levers that we look at and analyze, and let's add some more advanced analytics around correlations to volumes, to logistical volumes, and all these key cost areas, and becoming the team of insights for that, but please add.  

 

Kim Castro 0:05:47.3: 

Yes, I would say it's a lofty topic, for sure. Certainly a buzzword. Are you getting feedback on it? 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:05:55.8: 

Yes, a little bit of feedback.  

 

Kim Castro 0:05:58.4: 

I would say it depends on where your company is, right? Even the industry. Is your finance team, the accountant that's sitting in the back room with a green visor on, and you only see them when they've got to file a [?QRRK 0:06:09.9] or a tax bill has to be paid, or are they a business partner integrated today? Are they on the leading edge of where the business goes or are they a scorekeeper? I've spent my whole career, 30 years in retail, about half of it, and I would say the retail industry, my experience - and not to disparage any of my employers - but they lean more on the green visor side. They haven't historically made the investment in finance as much as they have in their supply chain or other areas, and so the transformation journey is starting - and I heard it today here a couple of times - in Excel and you're planning your entire company and where you want to go. Some of the big things are, the data, how much work needs to be done there? How much upfront work needs to be done? Where do you want that ultimate journey to be, and where do you want finance to be in the organization? So I think that's where it's different. It just depends on where you're starting from, for sure.  

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:07:16.7: 

Awesome. It seems like there's a lot of routes that you can take for transformation. Kim, I'm curious to know, what are some elements that define success for these organizational-wide initiatives? 

 

Kim Castro 0:07:30.8: 

I think if you're going at it as an enterprise-wide, which is a big scope, and be prepared for the change management and the integration, because it's not just what you can control necessarily in your finance organization, I think you define the success… Again, back to that roadmap. I think building that roadmap has to have some stakeholder involvement and cannot just be so focused just in your finance organization. If your scope is very small and it just is controlled holistically in finance, then I think your your measure of success is different, but if you're going at it from a big enterprise-wide, I think measurement and your defining success by actually putting in the tool and is getting used and what is your adoption and how are you measuring that adoption, and what are the outcomes. One of the things that I've said to my leaders that I worked for is, as a leader, as a CFO or the executive, if you're not asking for different outcomes, people aren't going to change what they're doing. If you're not asking for things in a different way, if you're putting in a system that is driver-based and can tell you more of these correlation metrics, if you as a leader are not asking what those are, the person that's sitting in Excel that's much more comfortable just keying things is going to tend to do that. So I think that when you start to think about the end game and really you spend a lot of money and a lot of effort and a lot of hours bringing people on the journey, you want to be able to use whatever tool it is, whether it be a system or any capabilities that you've given them. 

 

Matt Cain 0:09:06.6: 

Yes, I think collaboration and support and buy in from all of the leadership. I mean, I think if you think that you're going to have only this idea within the finance team and you're going to do this to other teams, not with other teams, you're probably not going to go very far. I think you need the leaders asking the questions of the models and the designs and what you want to get out of it. I think the number one thing that you'll measure on the other side of the transformation is adoption, is use of the tool. We can build a fantastic model, but if it's sitting on a shelf, no one's using it, we're not getting any value from it. So I think there's got to be that cross-team support from operations, marketing, finance, if that is our target audience. The models have to have value and buy-in and support from leadership across that. There's no way we can do this in a silo. I think the flip side of that is that each team can have their cake and eat it too; these models can mean different things to different teams. The finance team can certainly have their own model and their own area of analytics that are highly specific to the problems that they're trying to solve, and they can set certain guardrails for what they need other teams to be modelling in a connected manner to help them get those insights, but that doesn't mean that we have to not let those teams get the value that they want out of it. So I think to Kim's point, it's the group collaborative buy-in from leadership and then you have to follow through on asking new questions. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:10:50.0: 

Awesome. Let's talk about the collaboration piece a little bit, because it sat on the other side of the table from you, mainly green visors. I've had to lead a number of org-wide initiatives, including major implementations - Anaplan being one of them - at a large-scale retailer. How do you foster that collaboration between your business partners and get the buy-in that you need to drive this transformation? 

 

Kim Castro 0:11:20.1: 

Yes, I mean, I think there's different ways to do that. I would say both big transformations I led, different objectives, but one of the ways that I saw pretty successful - and I think it opens an eye to some of the finance leaders - is you actually need to go ask those stakeholders, what do they think of finance? Do they think you're really good? Are you providing them what they need? I will say in my experience, it definitely opens some eyes for finance people when you go and ask that in a way that you're trying to build out that transformation journey. That's step one. What is the voice of your customer? Who is your customer if you're finance, is it just the shareholders? Is it just the CEO? It's probably - especially in retail - your merch team, your procurement team, your suppliers. What do they think of finance and what do they want to see out of finance? Once you understand that and you're building that roadmap, we kept them involved in the journey right out of the gate. It wasn't something that was normally done, right? What do you mean, finance is bringing in, they're leading this? So it flipped the dynamic of following versus leading. Did I say we got it 100 per cent right? No, we were biting off a lot, enterprise-wide integrated business planning being led by finance in a retail organization. Not your journey, I think, right? So I don't know that we got it 100 per cent right but I know we got it a lot further than we would have if we just started going down finance and say, 'Oh, we know what our partners want.' 

 

Matt Cain 0:13:03.3: 

Yes, I think for me, it's similar. I think it goes back to just intentional specificity about the problems that we're trying to solve. I think finance can be very selfish and if you clearly define, these are the questions we're trying to answer, these are the problems we're trying to solve, you can be very specific about the problems you're trying to address and you can have others answer their own questions as well and get value out of it, still connected to the ecosystem that you're in. I don't think you can necessarily dictate exactly what you expect others to get into. I think you've got to have the others find value in it. So I would probably leave it there. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:13:49.6: 

Awesome. I wish I had a finance partner. 

 

Kim Castro 0:13:52.3: 

I wish you did too! 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:13:53.2: 

It probably would have went over a little bit easier. All right, so transformation can include technology. So what role has technology played in transformational efforts?  

 

Kim Castro 0:14:05.6: 

So it's big, but I would say that it depends on what you're trying to achieve. Especially when you're looking at a tool like Anaplan. I think you could - certainly out in the industry, in multiple industries, and you think, 'Oh, this is going to make it so easy,' and it's not. I think the work that you're doing - and if you've gone down this journey, this is not some secret sauce. Working on the data, getting the processes tight, making sure you have the right scope, and then putting all the changes in necessary to be able to put in a technology on top of it, and the technology is the easy part in my opinion. If you do all the other steps right, the technology, boom, done. All that other stuff is really hard. So I think technology can play - it depends on what you're trying to achieve and what you're trying to get out of it, but technology is not the solution. It's all these other things that enable you to use that technology, and then now you start to layer AI on top of it and whatnot. So for me, I mean, that's been part of our journey - at Gap, for sure. Getting your data right and how low are you going to go? Are you going down to a SKU? So getting all of that, for us across four brands, that's so much work to be done, to think about using that technology. So if you come in and you're just like, 'Oh, I'm just going to put in Anaplan. Oh, easy.' Maybe? If your scope is this big and all of your data is perfect, in which case great for you. That's like Nirvana. So I think it's a great tool but if you go in shortsighted and expect more from that tool than it's designed to give, you could over design and that sends you down a whole really bad path. 

 

Matt Cain 0:16:01.7 

I think, yes, I think Anaplan sets you up for a very - what I think is a technology that's very conducive to the crawl, walk, run. It's not like we're going to build it once and it's going to live for ten years. That's not going to be the case, and I think if you're designing thinking that, you've probably got another thing coming. So I think Anaplan has a technology, to Kim's point, if you focus on the process and you focus on the data and you make those investments, Anaplan won't be… The technology in Anaplan specifically won't be the barrier to get there. It'll go as fast as your process design and your data will permit it to go. I'm sure a lot of the folks and organizations that leverage Anaplan see how fast you can set things up when you know what you want, you've got the data to do it, and that's one of the great things about Anaplan. I think from a transformation perspective, definitely make sure that you know what you're getting into there. Going back to something I said originally about what transformation means to a lot of finance teams, I think it's because the data is so essential in these models, I think it's a lot of - I want to say, change in ownership, but it's a lot of ownership and interest now from finance in owning more of the aspects of governance, making sure the right connections are made, the right quality and checks are there so that when the insight is there, we can automate that insight that I can rely on it. I think your transformation needs to include the processes and the investment to get the data there, and really Anaplan will be one of the faster parts of it, to Kim's point, once we know where we're headed. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:17:53.1: 

Awesome. I'm going to go off the cuff a little bit.  

 

Kim Castro 0:17:55.9: 

Great.  

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:17:56.3:  

Yes, absolutely. Why not? So you talked a lot about the data, and every time I have this conversation with a customer, I'm like, 'Start with your data. Don't do anything else. Just start with your data.' One of the things that I experienced in retail, due to just the mass volume of data that you have to deal with - I mean, Gap, just the sheer volume of data is crazy. What I'm most curious about is how do you get the support needed for the right governance model because the data creation happens in so many pockets of the organization, it's a little bit of merch, it's a little bit of planning, it's a little bit of supply chain and your product teams, so where does that live and how do you rally support within the organization to see that data is an asset and not a liability? 

 

Kim Castro 0:18:47.8: 

It's a great question. I think I have a good answer. For me, it wasn't my first rodeo when I joined Gap and I knew, I was hoping that it was going to be my last journey in corporate America, and so I wasn't holding back. I knew that all this work that we did on our data - and it was really good work, and I will say kudos to our controller who had our chart of accounts and our data structure around our finance in a good place that we could start to leverage. But there was no way, after four years of that work that I was letting it backslide. So about two years in, I reported to the CFO, and I said, you've got to put in data governance or you're wasting your time because there's no way this is going to go backwards. I would use the example of, what if we do all this work and you go and buy an adjacent business and you decide - you've got somebody somewhere in the organization that's going to stand up some product hierarchy that totally jacks up the whole thing, right? It literally could render the system useless for what we built it for - and I'm not telling you anything you don't know. So it was hugely important. Now I would say I had a partner in her, I'm kind of like a dog with a bone, so she had to listen to me. At some point, she gave up trying to avoid it. Not that she was really - but it's like, she's a CFO. She's got 800 things to do in an hourly basis, but I hammered it; hammered, hammered; and Matt probably could attest to I was relentless about it because I did think it was the most important thing coming out of this.  

 

Kim Castro 0:20:27.6: 

You've got to put in enterprise data governance. You cannot have four brands - just where we were, four brands with different levels of, how have you been managing…? Because you are going to get to the point where AI is very important and you cannot mine that data in the way that it was. So anyway, I'll go on this, it was a good question, that's why I'm passionate about it - you can see. So we got a new chief technology officer in this four-year journey I had there and I had some partners on the tech side that I would say really embraced it as much as I did, and you can imagine, going through marketing in the retail space, apparel, retail space, there's a lot of data out there and there are companies that mine that for you. So there was already some preliminary work. I had good partners at the executive level that said, yes, we agree, and I will tell you, we were starting from almost ground zero, and we put in - and Matt is still supporting Gap - to tell you how it's going, we did put in - and we started at an enterprise level and said we're going to put in an enterprise hub. We did a hub and spoke, and finance was the guinea pig, and we put in the first data governance team inside of finance. We staffed it. The controller has the first right of refusal. The controller of the organization has the decision rights. If it doesn't work for our externally reported financial statements, then you don't get to make that change. So we put the control in our ledger system and our charter of accounts; that's the Bible. It had to be really strong in order to push back, and so they meet at a certain cadence.  

 

Kim Castro 0:22:11.8: 

Now, is this going to work across the whole organization when we get into the product teams? It's starting to but I think you have to have an organization at the top that fully understands the importance of that data governance, and then I think that hub and spoke model, I like it the best out of all of them. Sorry, long answer to your off the cuff question! 

 

Matt Cain 0:22:35.2: 

I mean, I don't necessarily have much to add. If you look at some of the processes that happen across every facet of the organization, one of them is finance. It is embedded in every part of the organization and so I think finance transformation programs are definitely on the forefront of a lot of data governance efforts and initiatives that need multi-leader collaboration but then set the tone for how other teams take from those data products. So to Kim's point, I think… I also don't think it's a mystery now as to the importance of the data and governance of it, especially if you take the human element out of it and we start to have agents processing this, you're going to have to have that completely buttoned up for there not to be a hallucination of sorts. So I think there's definitely an awareness now and I think that helps but I do think if we think about specifically, finance transformations, I think they end up taking on a lot of what becomes the benchmark for other facets of the organization in terms of data collection, because we need to pull from all areas. It's all impacting the dollars and cents of the company. 

 

Kim Castro 0:23:58.2: 

I'd just add one thing - it one of my proudest moments, and this was planned for a while that I was going to retire, but towards the end, this public knowledge that Gap announced they're going to get into beauty and it went through the data governance. I wouldn't say that it was all aligned and everybody… But it was that example that this is not apparel. Your product hierarchy is going to be different. Where are you going to put it? Are you going to put it at the top? Are you going to put it adjacent? Where is it going to be? And so it was nice to see it actually play out. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:24:28.2: 

That's awesome. Thanks for indulging me. I always like to ask transformation leaders what worked well, didn't work well, biggest lessons learned. 

 

Kim Castro 0:24:41.5: 

Yes, I mean, that's been asked a couple of times there, and I think change management is the easy one. I think you always under club it - I am retiring to golf, other than a little hand injury that I acquired in the last couple of weeks. Going into Gap, I was dead set, you are going to hire the best transformation leader I can find at the right level because it is way too important, especially in an organization that - like the culture of the Gap world, it has been around a long time. That wasn't a lesson learned for me at Gap. It was a lesson learned that I fixed in going into Gap. So we did not have that. I mean, there was resistance, but it was not because we didn't recognize the need for it out of the gate. I would say one of the lessons learned that Matt was a great help with us is specific to Anaplan, and implementing a tool was, understand what each of your models can do and don't overengineer that one model. I think in order to do that, you really have to understand your processes of, how much is finance doing? Is finance doing a role that - the prior presentation here talked about HR data and finance. Well, is your finance organization managing all of your headcount and your workforce management, and when you try to build the finance model, you're trying to make it a workforce management model? It doesn't work, it's too overengineered. So Matt and his team were very helpful in helping us chunk out those models.  

 

Kim Castro 0:26:17.7: 

I heard a lot about the consolidation model here. It doesn't add… It's not the shiny object, the consolidation model, but in my opinion it's, right, start there, because it only helps the consolidation team, really. Nobody else cares. But it does help you understand the scope of that model and then your allocations and whatnot, and so that was a huge lesson learned for me - specific to Anaplan - was don't overengineer those models, get them in the right size and in the right scope. 

 

Matt Cain 0:26:52.9: 

I think for me, and it's not just a Gap thing, but I think one of the areas that we can often see underinvested in is, on the adoption side, I guess I would bucket it in training is, I think you do need to - in a lot of cases, we're bringing so much new advanced analysis and so much data front and center with the users. I think you do have to think about retraining teams on how to do their job, how to do their work day-to-day. I think you can go through the few hour training session of just how the model works. You key in this here, you key in this here, and you get your report here. That's the table stakes stuff but I think you're underutilized and you're not squeezing all the value out of it if you don't follow up with, okay, here's the type of analysis this team is now going to do with this, and let's talk about how you get the data out. Let's talk about how you pivot. I mean, the number… There's so many features of data accessibility and insights in Anaplan that I think are underutilized, and I think it's because you're not going to ingest it in a day. You need an ongoing plan to keep these teams up to speed with - and some of it's not even the technology. It's also the data itself in the context of it.  

 

Matt Cain 0:28:23.6: 

So I think it's investing in the training - and going back to the lessons learned - it's investing in the training and some of the biggest value will be in, I do think you're going to have to work with teams and change the way they work and be very intentional about sitting with them and not assuming it's going to happen, because I think that, to Kim's point, that the backslide, I think teams will just have a tendency to revert to the two or three numbers that they were looking at before, instead of the 50 numbers that we now have great insight to and the decision that I can now make with that. So I think it's the technology lens and follow through with training people on how to leverage all this information. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:29:07.9: 

Yes. That's why the change management, I find, is so crucial because people are used to doing things in a certain way, and they think that's how they have provided value to the organization for a long period of time, right? So when you think your value is attached to plugging in numbers and not analyzing the business, it's hard to make that shift from tactical to strategic and bringing people along that journey. I like what you said most people undershoot the under club, as you said. Change management I think is a really important part of the transformational journey. 

 

Kim Castro 0:29:44.9: 

I think in finance - especially because I don't think we're the most change-forward people and I do think it's… I don't love the model of asking finance people to take a class in change management, and then they're your change champion. No. I'm not an advocate of that because I just think it is a very specific skill set and you can't - that person is hugely valuable and they're trained very professionally in that. So I totally agree with you. 

 

Lindsay DiPietro 0:30:19.4: 

Absolutely. All right, so we've touched a little bit on AI throughout this presentation. Matt, I'm going to start with you. Where does AI fit into these initiatives? 

 

Matt Cain 0:30:31.3: 

So I think it's going to be on the data side. I think if we talk about transformations happening within finance, I think the AI element would be for me that AI is going to need to work on data, but context, particularly some of the early agents, you're going to have to have good data, but you're also going to have to have a team making the obvious connections in your data to give it the context that then the agent will sit on and let's say, more efficiently deliver some insights. I think if we thought years ago that anything data availability related would be within the domain of IT or a data team within IT, to me I think that's the transformation. Anaplan, it's been around for a while now, it was already a front runner in that trajectory, because we were always looking to put the modelling teams in the business. We were always looking to put the teams that would give the modelling its context, its insights, changing these things. We would put that in finance or operations or wherever - merch, wherever it was going to be. So I think Anaplan is a very forward tool in what's coming in that regard, in that IT will be the team of data availability and security, and the business teams will be the teams of data context and insights on which the agents will sit.  

 

Matt Cain 0:32:13.1: 

So I think Anaplan is very well set up to have very effective agents in that regard, because it was always a platform that was that was in the business, and the speed of turn - again, I think I said at the beginning, I remember older technologies in years prior, we would design and build a report, and by the time we got it in the user's hand, there was a long list of changes to make, and it just never ended. So I think you're going to see more and more of the analysis and the data modelling happening in the business. I think Anaplan is a tool that's very conducive to that but you're going to need that for the agents, and I think having your transformation recognize that, yes, our finance future process is going to be finance owning the budget and the forecast and the long-range planning. It's also going to be the data and the context of the data that gives us all the additional advanced value add. So that's, to me, how I think agents are going to come into the finance teams and what finance teams should be doing to get ready is, they're the team that will have the knowledge of what they need, the knowledge of the business, to turn the data fast enough to get the insights. I think if you've got a long supply chain or lead time of getting those changes out to the users, you need to probably plan to change that. Kim, do you want to add anything? 

 

Kim Castro 0:33:46.5:  

I would say that I think finance will be a fast adopter for AI because… It's so funny. You're stuck in that you love Excel, but then I saw it just in the last six months, just leveraging Co-pilot. Have it do this for me, I don't have to transcribe. I don't have to… So getting out of the data corralling business. I think you're going to have to - as a finance person, we've been answering this question, is the industry going to be gone? If you're a college grad right now… There's always going to be a need. We were doing bookkeeping, how many years? I came out of school, I was still using a ten key with tape on it. There's more accounting need today. So I would say that I think it's… We talked a lot about, the last transformation about people and upskilling the talent, right? Get out of that Excel and you've got to become more strategic in your thinking because I think the industry, especially retail apparel, responding to your customer is going to have to be quicker, and in order to do that, you're going to have to understand the financial implications even faster. I've never been in a situation in the 30 years of corporate America where I gave somebody better information than they expected, and then they didn't ask more questions, right? 'If you do this, can you do this?' So I think AI is really going to facilitate that, that everything's just going to move faster and if you can get your supply chains to move faster, you can get the product to your customer faster and understanding those implications.  

 

Kim Castro 0:35:24.2: 

I think in the finance world, if you haven't invested in your data already, you're behind because you're not going to be able to use it, right? To Matt's point. And being able to use those agents, I think is going to be much more natural to a finance person. 

 

Matt Cain 0:35:41.1: 

Yes. Let's not be the team that rolls up budgets and forecasts. That's going to happen. You're going to have to be the team of insight and so you're going to have to know the business really well and the finance side of things very well as well, but that'll be the value, and that'll be any team. I mean, I think that'll be - that's not just a finance thing. I think back to the transformation; ask yourself early on in your transformation journey, what are the insights that this team is going to add? Because we don't need to collect data anymore, and to a certain degree, a lot of the processing is going to be automated too. So what are we going to add? 

 

Kim Castro 0:36:22.9: 

Yes, I like to use… I first said this to one of my leaders and they were like, yes, but blue sky is touchless FP&A. You get the data, you push a button and there's your budget or your forecast because it's all driver based, it's all based on metrics that you've put into it, and as the finance person, you need to understand what those are and what the correlations are and upskill your stats skills. 

 

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