3 Reasons Why Your FP&A Is Failing And How To Fix It

You may not be aware of it, but your financial planning and analysis processes are failing. They are old and tired, they take up too much of your time, and they aren’t performing the effective data analysis that you need. They are forcing you into manual processes that are slowly dragging your company down and could render you helpless in the face of competition.

Here are the top three reasons why your FP&A is failing and exactly how you can remedy it before it is too late:

1. There’s No Collaboration In Your Organization
Hearing a lot of crickets in the office, at least until closing weeks or when an issue arises? A siloed environment grows when there are no tools readily available that foster an atmosphere of collaboration, whether it be in software or human capital, causing employees to be over-protective of data and unwilling to share insight.

2. There’s Too Much Time Spent On Grunt Work
Is everyone flying around like worker bees in a hive, working on a singular mission? They are so blinded by the singular goal of data gathering and meeting deadlines that they aren’t analyzing the data. Their effort is going into manually entering data in an outdated system, increasing the opportunity for errors.

3. There’s A Lack Of Investment On Dynamic Budgeting, Forecasting & Reporting
Have you ever heard a little bit goes a long way? Such is not the case when it comes to investing in analytics technology. A little more goes a long way. By not investing in human capital and technology, odds are you are going to see lackluster results downstream. Both of these are vital to perform next-level budgeting, forecasting and reporting. Unfortunately, if you aren’t making the investment in technology today, your competition probably is and you are going to be left behind.

Now that you know why your FP&A is failing, how do you fix it?

Break the walls down!
Step out of your siloed environment and join together to promote a culture of teamwork and partnership. You must start at the top and lead by example, aligning goals across teams and your teams will invest and follow.

Invest in the Technology!
Excel is not the only tool! There are so many other options out there to drive change and deliver results. Analyze the human effort to execute duties and research how technology can shift those efforts more towards analysis and being a more dynamic finance organization.

Research!
It's a new age, see how processes have changed and how you can update yours. Don’t keep doing the same processes the same way because “that’s the way it’s always been done”. Recruit charismatic and progressive individuals who can help promote the change in the organization.

Ready to fix your failing FP&A process and not sure where to start? Let Oasis help you with our Oasis Analysis.