According to the inaugural Vena Industry Benchmark Report, 40% of businesses don’t do any scenario modeling before making adjustments to forecasts. The new report draws from the insights of 350 business leaders and finance and operations professionals across industries and from around the world. When asked if organizations engage in a scenario modeling plan before making forecasting adjustments, 40% of survey respondents replied “no,” while 60% said “yes.” This finding raises questions especially relevant during this period of unprecedented change: If you aren’t regularly testing business plans against potential future scenarios, how can you ensure forecasts are as well-informed as possible? And without thoroughly analyzing what might happen in the future, how can business leaders align goals and prepare for what does happen? With business conditions evolving as rapidly as they are today, businesses need to be ready for anything—whether that’s making it through a cash crunch, preparing for resource reallocations or adapting to a new operating model. But if there’s no clear process in place for determining how potential changes will affect the bottom line, it’s difficult to plan proactively based on reliable financial assumptions. That’s why scenario modeling and analysis is such an important aspect of effective finance-led business planning. By testing budgets and forecasts against a range of assumptions and business drivers—both internal and external—you can mitigate risk and better understand how decisions made today will impact the bottom line tomorrow. And even though it’s impossible to prepare for every possible business outcome, modeling multiple scenarios helps you identify your most variable KPIs, measure the influence of changes and then factor that information into your business plans going forward. To make the job of modeling multiple scenarios easier, move away from manually running models in offline spreadsheets and leverage predictive analytics to generate reliable scenario models in minutes. Plus, by providing a consolidated view of company-wide data and conducting variance analysis between previously forecasted periods, you can account for both historical trends and real-time actuals when choosing which scenarios to analyze—ultimately resulting in a more thorough, focused planning process with inputs from every business function. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that budgets and forecasts will always need to change at some point. But through agile scenario analysis, you can turn change into an opportunity to re-align your business plans and chart the best course for the future—no matter what that future might look like. Learn more about how you can empower your finance team with scenario modeling so you can make faster, smarter decisions for the future of your business. Download Vena’s Industry Benchmark Report here.

As the modern finance function continues to evolve, teams are relying on BPM solutions for better budgeting, forecasting and reporting. A new survey reveals that finance teams are most interested in budgeting and forecasting functions from their business performance management (BPM) software solutions. They’re using these tools to improve key reporting processes and support strategic, finance-led business planning. The Pulse of Performance Management survey—which is released annually by advisory firm BPM Partners—provides an unbiased examination of the trends and technologies that are shaping the BPM software market. This year’s survey focused on finance’s evolution into an agile, forward-thinking planning function. It also explored the value of BPM solutions when it comes to adapting to changing business conditions. When asked to identify the BPM components they’re most interested in, 76% of survey respondents said “budgeting and forecasting.” “Financial reporting” and “financial modeling” were second and third on the list at 68% and 48%, respectively. Furthermore, when asked to point out the primary drivers behind their BPM software projects, “improving management reporting” topped the ranking at 66%. The next two responses in that category were “more frequent, agile planning” (45%) and “better decision making” (40%). Respondents were also asked to identify which aspects of finance transformation are most important to their teams. The top three responses were “operational reporting” (63%), “increased planning frequency” (57%) and “predictive forecasting” (51%). In today’s ever-changing business environment, it’s easy to see why finance teams are turning to BPM software solutions to support budgeting, forecasting and reporting. Modern BPM tools allow finance teams to consolidate company-wide data for real-time planning and analysis—ultimately empowering key stakeholders with the information they need to make agile, data-driven business decisions. Source system integrations and process automation eliminate the manual tasks associated with budgeting and forecasting, such as data entry, template generation and variance reporting. With more time for meaningful analysis, finance teams can shift from static annual budgets to a more continuous reforecasting and planning cadence. This is critical, because if teams are still relying on static budgets to plan through the year, their numbers will be obsolete as soon as business conditions change—making it tough to plan for the future with any degree of confidence.  That’s why budgeting and forecasting features are so important in the BPM software market right now. Vena Solutions, for example, supports streamlined budget orchestration, real-time forecasting and agile, finance-led business planning. Vena won a BPM Pulse Award this year for its superior budgeting and planning performance, earning an overall satisfaction rating of 4.62 out of five. The software is also known for its ease of use, scalability and quick time to value for customers. With the right budgeting and forecasting tools, finance teams can report on key insights faster and always ensure their business plans are based on reliable, up-to-date data. And as more finance teams evolve into strategic, forward-thinking business partners, that kind of insight will be crucial when it comes to planning for today and tomorrow. Discover how Vena can streamline your budgeting process and enable accurate, real-time forecasting so you can plan confidently across every function of your business. Check out BPM Partners’ 2020 Pulse of Performance Management webinar on demand here.

When it comes to today’s financial reporting, dashboards have emerged as an important part of the process. Acting as powerful data visualization tools, financial dashboards shine at showing key pieces of data, visually telling a story and purposefully informing business decisions. For financial professionals, dashboards can be the key to effectively understanding and presenting a company’s overall health and vision for the future. Essentially, financial dashboards consolidate a company’s performance data into a single picture. They enable both finance professionals and decision makers across the organization to easily understand what’s going on with the business. The most effective dashboards draw meaningful data correlations, deliver actionable insights and/or highlight variances in financial trends. What’s more, they show key financial performance indicators (KPIs) in real time, so viewers can quickly prioritize their areas of focus and take action.  According to Khurram Chohan, CFO of TogetherCFO: “Having a clear financial dashboard is the key to making better business decisions and being able to act faster.” By providing a common visual language between finance and non-finance audiences, financial dashboards also help foster a culture of collaboration, transparency and accountability across the organization. And that’s increasingly important, because the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) team is evolving into a central hub for measuring the health of a business.  As Marjorie Adams, CEO of Fourlane, advised businesses to stay on top of  financial reporting, “Don’t just track finance, every department’s numbers have an impact, so collect them all.” Clearly, the demand is growing for consolidated data and strategic insights across business units and functions. This means that FP&A professionals need to get savvier about predictive analytics and performance management. They also have to adapt and learn quickly from more holistic views of historical data—integrating a company’s past, current and projected numbers.  Justin Goodbread, CEO of Heritage Investors, explained, “The goal is to have your financial reports provide a story that giv[es] you a complete picture of your company’s past, present and future financial health.”   The good news is that dashboards are making it easier and faster to aggregate and analyze financial data. It’s empowering finance teams to focus on key company metrics and to understand how they’re affecting the company’s bottom line and other crucial KPIs. Beyond traditional finance metrics, it’s giving them greater visibility into the health of the business as a whole.  Indeed, with the growing influence of the finance team over high-level business decisions, being able to analyze a company’s “big picture” is more critical than ever. But how exactly do you create clear and strategic dashboards to effectively track and evaluate your entire organization’s financial health? It comes down to building the right dashboards — with the financial metrics that truly drive an organization’s overall success:  Business health Customer health Employee health  Here’s how to elevate your financial reporting and analysis with these three critical dashboards. Business Health Dashboard Arguably, finance’s most important role is proactively measuring a company’s financial health and overall sustainability. Generally speaking, business health dashboards should evaluate both short- and long-term financial metrics (based on a company’s short- and long-term goals). And to ensure full transparency and visibility, they should also include budget to actual variance analysis.  There are several critical areas to consider, but here are the most important metrics for building a business health dashboard: Revenue and Net-New Revenue: The most crucial measurement of a company’s financial health is its level of profitability. While liquidity, solvency and operating efficiency are all important, the bottom line is that revenue, net-new revenue, and profit matter most and being able to clearly visualize how those numbers are trending is vital. Net Profit Margin: The ratio of profits to total revenue is the most telling metric for assessing profitability. A simple profit dollar figure simply isn’t enough to determine a company’s financial health. A company might show a multi-million dollar net profit, but if that represents a low net margin, even a slight increase in operating costs could be disastrous. Conversely, a high net margin indicates more financial stability and flexibility for dedicating capital to growth and expansion. Net profit margin allows finance teams to measure what percentage of total revenue translates into profit. While that margin often varies by sector, this metric is critical for projecting future profits and setting business goals and key milestones to directly shape decisions about business expenses and operations. LTV:CAC: This ratio compares a customer’s lifetime value (LTV) against a customer’s acquisition costs (CAC)⁠—the costs associated with earning their business. For a business to be viable, the investment spent to acquire a customer not only has to be paid back,  but also has to generate a healthy profit. Companies can’t afford to miscalculate the potential of this value. Essentially, the LTV:CAC metric indicates whether a company is well-positioned for long term growth and whether it can strongly influence decisions about sales and marketing operations. In general, a healthy ratio is 3:1. See how Vena’s new dashboard tool can help you gain more visibility into your company’s financial health. Customer Health Dashboard Finance teams (especially with subscription-based business models), need to measure how existing customer relationships are impacting the bottom line. This enables finance leaders to help sales and customer success teams understand where they should focus their efforts and resources.  Beyond the numbers, customer health data provides insight into the stability of the company’s overall customer service function. Afterall, it’s always cheaper to retain an existing customer than to sign a new one.  Here are the most important metrics to include in a customer health dashboard: Number of Active Customers: It’s important to show a visual comparison of actuals versus projections. This helps sales and marketing departments understand if they’re above or below expectations. Gross and Net Revenue Retention: Are your customers renewing their contracts or are they spending their dollars elsewhere? This helps companies measure customer satisfaction through a finance lens. Time to Value: How long does it take for your customers to start leveraging the value of your product? Especially important for technology and SaaS organizations (with longer product implementation times), this metric helps finance teams gauge whether or not a company needs to invest more in a customer success function.   Learn why John Daniels Associates relies on Vena to help their clients grow. Employee Health Dashboard Without a doubt, a company’s most important asset is its people. Clearly, employee trends and behavior affect a company’s bottom line and are vital for finance teams to measure. But effectively tracking and acting on employee health findings means working closely with HR (which also underscores the significance of cross-departmental transparency and collaboration). Fortunately, modern FP&A platforms can make it easy for finance teams to sync HR data with financial data to determine what the numbers mean for the business. Here are the most important metrics to include in an employee health dashboard: Employee Retention: It’s important to measure what percentage of employees stay with your company over a given period of time.  Headcount Budget versus Actuals: This metric helps business leaders understand whether or not the company is expanding at its projected pace.  Revenue per Employee: This is a good way to measure employee productivity and also helps finance and HR teams gauge how headcount is influencing the bottom line.  Employee Survey Data: You can collect this data from employee engagement activities and surveys. This might include the percentage of employees who would recommend the company and/ or express confidence in a company’s leadership. The savviest finance teams are likely to find a positive correlation between employee satisfaction and overall business performance.  Find out how Vena can help optimize workforce and labor planning. Connecting the Dots for Financial Health From tracking the bottom line to evaluating customer satisfaction and employee happiness, financial health dashboards can offer invaluable insights for the entire company. While individual metrics might mean different things to different organizations, connecting the dots between the key drivers of a company’s health is critical to seeing its big financial picture.  For finance teams (and their organizations), the right dashboards can be the windows to more strategic, integrated and dynamic views of the business.  Learn how to quickly assess your company’s health metrics and how to take your dashboarding to the next level with Vena’s Power BI Connector.

Every company can benefit from a corporate performance management (CPM) strategy, but it’s especially useful for those that want to modernize their financial planning and make more data-driven decisions for maximum future performance. Corporate performance management (CPM) refers to software systems that increase efficiencies and data accuracy in finance and accounting processes, enabling companies to measure and analyze their past performance to make better business decisions that maximize future performance—both in bottom line financials and operational KPIs. Software systems that measure and analyze financial data in order to inform strategic decisions go by several names—including business performance management (BPM) and enterprise performance management (EPM)—but in general, these terms are synonymous with CPM. New enhancements in cloud financial solutions have bridged the gap between applications that merely process and track transactions, and those that manage the full spectrum of financial planning and analysis (FP&A). CPM has merged with FP&A, allowing finance teams to not only monitor and manage their companies’ past and present performance, but also to plan for future performance improvements using insights and analysis from both financial and operational data. What is CPM Software? CPM software is a set of tools and processes that include reporting, planning, budgeting and analysis. An organization’s CPM output is the first step towards facilitating revenue growth and managing expenses. As the industry pivots from CPM to incorporating FP&A practices into every area of the business, the associated software has evolved as well. Modern FP&A software incorporates these key CPM functions, providing more power and more opportunity to organizations that embrace full-spectrum FP&A. Traditionally, CPM software has been segmented into: Financial CPM: accounting processes, namely financial close management including closing the books, consolidations, account reconciliations and preparation of financial statements/financial reporting Strategic CPM: finance processes, namely budgeting, planning and forecasting, i.e., the traditional definition of FP&A Until recently, these were typically sold to different audiences with different value propositions: Accounting (Financial CPM): increase efficiency of close process and accuracy of financial statements and reporting Finance (Strategic CPM): increase budgeting, forecasting accuracy and efficiency, and elevate the strategic role of finance in business-wide planning The evolution from segmentation to “full-spectrum” FP&A is due to the fact that the two sides of CPM are symbiotic: modern finance leaders should look at FP&A as an all-encompassing term for measuring, managing and reporting on their company’s past, present and future performance. Actuals from accounting need to feed into budgets, forecasts and analysis to inform better business decisions for the best future performance possible. The key differentiator between traditional CPM and full-spectrum FP&A is integrated business planning. Modern FP&A solutions and processes combine financial and non-financial data and KPIs to inform better departmental and business-wide decisions for the best future performance. Here’s a look at each of the key areas of performance management—what they are and how they’ve evolved. For an in depth comparison of CPM software solutions, check out the 2019 vendor landscape from analyst firm Nucleus Research. CPM and FP&A by Process Financial Close and Consolidation Definition: The financial close and consolidation process provides actual numbers for organizations to analyze against planned numbers. Full-spectrum solution: Modern software automates the financial close process—this means having to enter less data manually, which results in increased accuracy and more time for analysis. FP&A solutions also carry out a streamlined and automated consolidation process with in-depth audit logs and operations-based workflow. Reporting Definition: Reports include cash flow, income statements, balance sheets and other important business metrics, as well as regulatory reports like CCAR and 10Ks. Full-spectrum solution: Software enables self-serve reporting, so businesses can build summary reports with easily accessible details using a familiar Excel interface, without help from IT or a vendor consultant. Budgeting, Planning and Forecasting Definition: Planning outlines a business’ course of financial direction, while budgeting records how the plan will be followed each month. Budgeting also includes debt reduction, cash flow and revenue estimates. Forecasting uses market conditions, business drivers and historical data to predict a company’s financial outcome in the upcoming days/weeks/months and years. Full-spectrum solution: Full-spectrum software combines financial and non-financial data to inform management on the best business-wide planning decisions—budgets may be financial, but plans are cross-departmental. Modern software solutions also allow teams to implement a rolling forecast model of regularly updated forecasts, which leads to continuous improvement and increased forecasting accuracy with every iteration. Modeling and Analysis Definition: Modeling uses data to create projected scenarios of how financial processes may be affected by various market and internal events, and analysis is the process of evaluating the data that comes from these models. Full-spectrum solution: Modern software solutions use information from multiple sources such as accounting, business operations and finance to test models that predict how operational decisions might affect a company’s financial future. Learn how Nando's manages budgeting, forecasting and reporting for over 1,000 restaurants in 24 countries, with a single cloud-based solution. CPM and Excel While ERP modules and specialized CPM software abound, Excel still remains the most popular software tool for performing CPM, and it makes sense—it’s intuitive, familiar and everywhere in business, especially in finance and accounting departments. It’s only natural that Excel is the software users gravitate towards for any financial analysis or reporting need. Excel is built with flexibility at the forefront, so users don’t need help from IT consultants to build budget reports or perform data analysis. At the same time, it has a powerful interface that includes hundreds of functions for data visualization and statistical analysis. Finance and accounting professionals have relied on Excel for their entire careers, and it remains a highly-sought skill among candidates. Plus, countless companies have invested in training employees and building customized Excel models, templates and report formats. In fact, Excel is so popular that if it was a language, it would be one of the world’s largest, with nearly a billion speakers. To Excel or Not to Excel Organizations rely on Excel for its power, flexibility, and because they know it inside and out. But it’s not perfect. Weaknesses include a lack of: Underlying database Integration with company-wide databases and software Version control, audit trail, permissions, and other security controls Workflow automation Anytime, anywhere, any device access Drill-down reports Status tracking User-level permissions Excel Imitators Many CPM software vendors are convincing their customers to abandon Excel-based approaches in favor of their proprietary emulations. These solutions are similar to Excel, but lack its flexibility and power, and require a long, continual and costly process of customizations to make the software fit the company’s unique needs. What’s more, 84% of companies that buy proprietary CPM software to replace Excel end up exporting their data back to Excel anyway. Why? Because accounting and finance professionals prefer its flexibility and familiarity. But exporting back to Excel defeats the purpose of a secure, controlled program in the first place. It also perpetuates the problem of “shadow systems,” additional software being used outside of company-approved solutions. In this scenario, you’re back at square one—facing the same challenges as using Excel on its own. Integration: The Best of Both Worlds The solution to this dilemma? Integrate advanced features with Excel’s flexible interface. By combining Excel’s familiar interface—not just emulating the look and feel, but real, actual Excel—with a cloud-based solution, organizations can fix inefficiencies without compromising the power of a tool they’re already familiar with. Excel integration is more than just deploying an “Excel-like” solution—integration combines the powerful functions of the original software with the benefits of a modern, scalable cloud solution. Learn how to add workflow, audit and version control to Excel in this series of free financial technology webinars! The Future of CPM BPM Partners’ Next Generation of CPM report explains that the next generation of performance management solutions will have four core characteristics: Comprehensive: A comprehensive program will go beyond the office of finance to deliver a holistic viewpoint of an organization. It allows senior management to understand the effects of new decisions on different parts of an organization. Connected: When the number of CPM software users in each department grows, there’s a need for more systems to be connected. This way, finance departments can get the bigger picture: operational trends, market changes, sales and product development – not just revenue. Collaborative: Innovative CPM designs will make it easier for users to share reports and data, turning business planning into a collaborative process. Executive management can share data and reports to move ahead with different goals. Cloud: Cloud-based CPM solutions can enhance scalability and accessibility while providing better security than on-site software. Focus on Usability In addition to the four characteristics above, advanced CPM applications must focus on providing usability – not only to finance professionals, but especially to users without a finance background. In order for enterprise software to realize its value, it must be adopted by employees. Ease of use, or “employee-centered” design, is the first step toward better performance: The value chain for an optimal CPM solution starts with increased usability. Usability leads to quick adoption, and quicker adoption means the finance departments can see quicker time-to-value. By getting everyone on board more efficiently and generating ROI earlier, word’s going to spread – and that means more recognition for the department who led the charge, easier buy-in from decision makers, and, ultimately, better decisions and business performance. “CPM isn’t just for accountants anymore. We’re seeing broader use throughout organizations which in turn is leading to greater adoption rates. This is making usability an important factor in current and future development trends. The end goal here is to achieve greater efficiency with analytics integration, more effectively empowering end-users.” – Nucleus Research Full-spectrum FP&A Full-spectrum FP&A software incorporates all the competencies of CPM to deliver a diverse spectrum of effective features. From financial close and scenario modeling to improving planning strategies for future business performance, FP&A solutions deliver reliable data and instant access to forecasted numbers. With a user-friendly cloud-based FP&A solution, finance teams don’t need to rely on vendors or IT consultants to get the most out of their software—they’ve got self-serve dashboards and drill-down reports to quickly get the information they need, and share it with others across the organization. Full-spectrum FP&A is the logical next step of CPM, giving finance teams clarity and confidence in their numbers with a centralized single source of truth, with automation that frees up time for analysis. Executives and members of senior management can make better decisions when they have real-time data at their fingertips – and that’s better for everyone. Ready to see for yourself why full-spectrum FP&A is the ultimate corporate performance management solution? See Vena in action with a personalized demo.

  The market shifts. New business goals are established or technologies introduced. A crisis emerges that has everyone trying to keep up. Change in all its forms is an inevitable part of doing business—and empowering change begins with a foundation of people, processes and tools. But to create the best path through and ensure that you continue to thrive, you need to draw on proven change management principles that align the organization and keep it moving forward.  What is Change Management? Change management involves the approach, techniques and tools you use to prepare your organization for change and to guide them through it. Change, after all, is a process in itself—and one that affects every area of business. As such, it needs to be approached thoughtfully, with the right plan in place, to be successful. Why is Change Management Important? Even when it’s done right, change can be intimidating. When done wrong, or too quickly, it can become a source of confusion and fear. Yet the process around change can often be undervalued by the executive team and can lack commitment throughout the organization as a whole. It can be mismanaged, initiated without proper due diligence, brought on too late or activated without proper planning. As part of the finance team, you have the opportunity to set the tone and to build commitment around the process of change, ensuring the right plan is in place and making sure it’s executed properly—then playing a pivotal role at every point.   That’s where change management comes in. The Change Management Process 1. Determine Your Vision  For change to resonate and take hold, there has to first be a solid reason for it—a vision that’s agreed upon by everyone involved and communicated company-wide. Change just for the sake of change will fizzle out before it even gets started—no one’s looking for a make-work project—so a clear purpose is key to driving it through successfully and a strong plan of action integral to ensuring it meets that vision in the end. The best projects are transparent and incremental, treating change like a marathon, not a sprint. Building short and medium-term goals along the way can help ensure success and making sure everyone has access to the same information will keep them all on the same path. But more important than anything is a shared end goal that can act as a finish line for the entire process, aligning everyone towards the same objective and making sure they all have the same expectations going forward. 2. Identify and Listen to Your Stakeholders  Once that vision is in place, the next step is identifying and communicating with stakeholders at all levels of the company (and sometimes beyond). Having the right people on board is key to the success of any change management project and to ensuring that the organization is aligned at every stage. A stakeholder plan will help determine the process of how change will be introduced and who needs to be involved to make it happen—from end users all the way up to the CEO. After all, the success of any new idea is reliant on your organization’s willingness to institute that change. The most successful programs also understand the emotions that change can inspire—getting stakeholder support will start to mitigate fear and confusion and create a culture that celebrates change rather than dreads it. That endeavor continues with the next step of building a team. 3. Build a Team to Facilitate Change  For real change to happen, it has to  be an organization-wide undertaking with champions in every department. That means interacting with individuals at every level of the organization—and not just en masse. Group communications can help make sure the message gets through, but don't take into consideration the individual struggles, insecurities or frustrations that are a common part of change. Facilitating this type of one-on-one communication as well as the listening and collaboration required with it relies on a team. A cross-departmental team will take the cue of the project’s stakeholders and go from there, helping to anticipate problems at all levels and prepare for customer reactions. Bringing in more people earlier in the process so that every part of the organization has a voice can also create a deeper and wider-held commitment to the process underway. 4. Support Change While It’s Happening  A common objective, well laid out vision and the right team are all integral to initiating change. For that change to take hold, though, you need to monitor and support it while it’s underway. This ensures it’s staying on course and helps you identify any resistance, risks or new challenges that come up along the way and do whatever is necessary to mitigate those circumstances as they happen. Making ongoing adjustments while the project is in progress may also be necessary. Those adjustments could be around the technology solutions being used or with the processes in play, to keep things moving forward efficiently and intelligently in ways that fit the business goals. It’s the right combination of processes and technology that will ultimately move an organization forward successfully towards the finish line. And of course, people are integral at this stage too—driving those process and technology decisions.  Identifying and Rationalizing Your Data Data should be a driving factor at every stage of change, fueling your decision making and helping teams identify trends and insights to guide the change ahead. It empowers data-driven storytelling and lets key stakeholders better visualize where the company has been, where it is now and where it’s going. As the main source of trusted data within the company, the finance team is especially pivotal in providing that data, making sense of it and turning it into meaningful insights and strategic direction. Yet no organization’s data is perfect. In fact, it’s often messy and disconnected, hard to get to and difficult to translate into meaningful information. Which is why any change management process is reliant on connecting disparate data sources and making the right data accessible and usable. That means consolidating financial and non-financial data together for a consistent view, eliminating duplicate data or data that’s not usable and mapping the lineage of data points. Doing so builds a data foundation and helps you glean the information necessary to drive the change management process and build towards business growth.  Reaching the Change Management Finish Line With proper buy-in and the right processes, people and technology in place, change can be manageable—whether it emerges from within your company or outside of it. But it requires a smart plan of action, the right data and a shared objective to truly get off the ground and thrive. With all the right components in place, change management can be transformational, putting your business on a new path that will see them through today and forward into the future. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Even with all of the right pieces in place, it takes continual planning, monitoring and communication to be successful. And the finance team can play a critical role in leading the way.    Learn more about how you can quickly get started with best practices for agile planning, or talk to a Vena FP&A expert 1:1 with no obligation to help you plan for today and tomorrow.

Why the right people, process and tools are essential to organizational transformation. Change is part of any business. When navigated well, it can lead to growth and gain. If not, it risks having a less positive effect. But good times or bad, the one truth is this: change isn’t going anywhere.  That’s why having an accepted change management process in place is key to agile business planning—putting organizations at the ready for whatever those changes might be, from shifts in the market and emerging competitors to new innovations or rapid growth. Building a positive environment for change, though, relies on leaders who can take the pulse of an organization and use a dynamic business model to drive growth.  For many companies, this means finance departments are taking on those leadership roles. By providing the insights and data necessary for operational decision making, they can help set goals and ensure the company is staying on track towards them, facilitating quick and intelligent choices along the way. But not all finance teams are up for the task—without a foundation in place to see past the numbers, they have no way of unveiling the insights underneath or leading the way to a successful evolution with agility and confidence. So where does the path to change begin for finance teams? To enable informed and intelligent decision making, they begin by putting the right people, processes and tools in place. The Road to Maturity People, process and tools create the foundation for insight and agility—helping to build a better way for today and pave a path towards tomorrow. And it’s up to the finance team to keep pace, shifting their functional responsibilities from transactional to more strategic. While they’re helping to guide the rest of the company through change, pushing the organization forward, they also can’t forget their own evolution. Company culture, executive buy-in and—most importantly—the maturity of the people, processes and tools in place will all play a part in the finance team’s capacity to do just that. As finance teams mature, they’ll begin to seek out and identify more sophisticated processes and tools to help them better analyze and find insight within the data—putting them in a place to steer organizational change when the need emerges. And if finance has its own house in order when the executive team comes knocking, they’ll be equipped to help other teams begin to identify the people, processes and tools they need to fill the gap and move forward.   For most organizations, the path to finance capability maturity looks something like this: For most companies, that road to maturity begins with the people on your team. The Heart of Everything: People People are central to everything your company does—from the bottom to the top, you wouldn’t get very far without them. They facilitate relationships and build the processes that connect the organization. They choose the technology that helps you work together efficiently and collaboratively. And they provide the intelligence and intuition that will let you look through the data to identify the trends and insights within.  While most finance teams start out more transaction oriented, it’s the people and the knowledge that they bring that, with the right company culture, will see them evolve to a more strategic role. And eventually, when people and business goals align, those teams can become strategic leaders—driving the entire change management process.  As you build change into your company, the right people will: Contribute deep analytical and strategic thinking to build informed insights based on their business knowledge and the data available. Set the vision and map out the process that will drive change through the days ahead. Talk to customers and internal stakeholders to identify upcoming trends and the questions that need to be answered—as well as the best data to facilitate both.  Champion change as it’s happening and revise the plan when necessary. Lead a company-wide team to support the efforts underway. But even the smartest people won’t get far if you have inefficient, unrationalized processes and the wrong technology or tools in place. Setting the Rhythm: Process If people are at the heart of organizational change, process is the rhythm of the organization that drives it.  Informed by your people and company culture, process will dictate how you collaborate. And when a disruption is underway, the right processes will let you pivot quickly to react. For instance, whether you budget and forecast annually, quarterly or monthly will make a difference when it’s time to identify cuts and reduce spend, since it influences the accuracy of your data and how informed your people are. And to improve speed, adopting integrated planning or rolling forecasting models might make sense—but will only bear fruit after undertaking a careful examination of process and putting any necessary changes in action to make them work.  And just like people rely on processes to work efficiently and effectively, those processes can fall apart when people aren’t on board to support and champion them—especially at the highest executive levels. Teams and the organizations around them need to seek out the value each process offers and the outlook it brings. As that internal investment evolves, they can move from more financially focused processes with periodic cycles, towards processes that truly enable proactive decision making at every turn. In times of change, best-in-class processes can: Fuel decision making and identify the changes that need to be made.  Provide near-term, rolling and long-term outlooks for different viewpoints into future business health. Drive business accountability and transparency. Determine that the right targets and measurements are in place. Identify the best actions and investments at every step. Together, process and people provide the base for all change. Even without the most sophisticated software, they’ll help finance departments create an agile environment to improve the decision making ahead. But the right tools will facilitate that journey and put new efficiencies and capabilities in place. The Final Piece: Tools   The last piece of the puzzle is the technology you choose to use to empower your people and enable your processes. Technology keeps processes collaborative and timely and ensures people stay informed, involved and empowered to act. Having technology tools in place can facilitate organizational growth and the change management process, but it’s just as critical that the tools you use fit your company culture. Technology bells and whistles go nowhere if people don’t know how to use them or if they don’t complement or can’t evolve with the processes you have in place.  Your tools, then, evolve as you do—from those that facilitate individual productivity to those configured for processes that are more repeatable and data intense. And the deeper you are in your maturity as a finance function, the more sophisticated tools you’ll need to help you meet your goals. As your organization matures, the right tools will help teams: Connect disparate types of data across financial and non-financial sources. Visualize data in ways that facilitate communication and collaboration.  Offer a real-time view of the changes underway and the most critical KPIs. Align the company’s mission timeline and cash availability. Identify, integrate and automate drivers into business plans. Align KPIs to strategy and identify the possibilities available to drive better decision making. Through all of that, your team will be able to pivot your business model, as needed, to facilitate smarter decision making and navigate change.  But while change might be inevitable, it’s also incremental. Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, your finance team won’t reach full maturity overnight. Your people, processes and tools will continue to mature in order to support the organization—until the finance team is leading the way to positive growth and gain.  Learn more about how you can quickly get started with best practices for agile planning, or talk to a Vena FP&A expert 1:1 with no obligation to help you plan for today and tomorrow.