Cookies help us display personalized product recommendations and ensure you have great shopping experience.

By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    image fx (67)
    Improving LinkedIn Ad Strategies with Data Analytics
    9 Min Read
    big data and remote work
    Data Helps Speech-Language Pathologists Deliver Better Results
    6 Min Read
    data driven insights
    How Data-Driven Insights Are Addressing Gaps in Patient Communication and Equity
    8 Min Read
    pexels pavel danilyuk 8112119
    Data Analytics Is Revolutionizing Medical Credentialing
    8 Min Read
    data and seo
    Maximize SEO Success with Powerful Data Analytics Insights
    8 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: 3 Steps to Improving Agility in Financial Budgeting and Planning
Share
Notification
Font ResizerAa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > IT > Cloud Computing > 3 Steps to Improving Agility in Financial Budgeting and Planning
AnalyticsBig DataCloud ComputingSoftware

3 Steps to Improving Agility in Financial Budgeting and Planning

johnnyor58
johnnyor58
6 Min Read
SHARE

Agile Planning and Budgeting

Contents
Financial agility is becoming a necessity in the business world, as the world of business continues to evolve and become even more dynamic.Financial agility is becoming a necessity in the business world, as the world of business continues to evolve and become even more dynamic.

Financial agility is becoming a necessity in the business world, as the world of business continues to evolve and become even more dynamic.

Today, there is rarely an aspect to business that isn’t constantly fluctuating, evolving, and adapting to trends. Business tends to be one giant set of variables, and consistency is a rarity.

Agile Planning and Budgeting

More Read

Image
Business Analytics and Hollywood: A Match Made in Heaven?
Two Talks on Data Science, Big Data and R
R and Hadoop: Step-by-step Tutorials
Energy Department Announces New SunShot Projects to Harness the Power of Big Data
The Big Data Health Partnership Between Apple and IBM

Financial agility is becoming a necessity in the business world, as the world of business continues to evolve and become even more dynamic.

Today, there is rarely an aspect to business that isn’t constantly fluctuating, evolving, and adapting to trends. Business tends to be one giant set of variables, and consistency is a rarity.

It’s on account of all these economic and industry variables that Finance teams require a high degree of agility. Whether the cost of oil is increasing or the demand for products is on the decline, Finance teams need to be able to respond immediately to ensure their budgets and plans reflect these shifting circumstances. Here are some tips for building more agility into your budgeting and planning process, so you can increase, adapt, and reallocate resources as needed.

Reduce Reliance on Spreadsheets and Manual Processes

The first step in improving agility is dispensing of the manual processes that are holding your team back. Spreadsheets, while a common method of tackling Finance, are notoriously cumbersome. Not only is all of the work conducted manually, requiring a significant time investment, but it becomes very difficult to scale and improve budgeting process over time. Instead, many organizations are adopting the budgeting and planning applications found in modern, cloud-based EPM software. These solutions can greatly automate the process, reducing manual work, while providing you with a centralized, cloud-based platform to store all financial data and budget variations. Then you can build your budget and compile reports more efficiently while minimizing manual errors.  And with most of these solutions, users can continue to leverage Excel as a front-end to the application.

Adopt Dynamic Planning Techniques Like Rolling Forecasts

By this time next quarter, the price of oil could have doubled, the cost of imports and exports could rise, some of your customers may churn, and your business could have added yet another product to its offerings. Nothing about your business remains constant, so your budget can’t either. Basing all of your decisions on an annual budget means you’re operating on static assumptions that will soon become irrelevant, as the drivers of your business change.

A rolling forecast can solve these problems. The rolling forecast can extend to the end of the fiscal year, or beyond, and you can update it regularly to reflect any changes in your industry or business. This allows you to incorporate changes in business conditions as they occur, so your plans and resource allocations are consistently up to date and accurate. It’s with the help of dynamic planning techniques like rolling forecasts that businesses can truly gain the agility needed to respond rapidly to new trends and opportunities.

Move to the Cloud

Cloud-based applications can be an important part of gaining complete financial agility, for small, medium and large enterprises. Finance has never been an isolated department. It relies very closely on the exchange of information from other departments across the enterprise. For the best results, your business needs to have the partnership of multiple departments within the company, exchanging data, collaborating on budgets and forecasts, and measuring performance. This can be made much more efficient with the cloud. Cloud-based applications offer both Finance and line of business managers the ability to access all of the data they need, and to update budgets and forecasts anytime, anywhere – in the office, on the road, or while working from home. 

Agility is greatly needed in the world of Finance, and yet many businesses fail to achieve as much financial agility as they are capable of. This is partly due to the pervasive reliance on Excel for budgeting and planning which, despite offering low agility, is still a highly popular method in many organizations. With a cloud-based EPM software platform, your business can streamline the budgeting process, adopt more dynamic techniques such as rolling forecasts, perform what-if scenario modeling – all of which can greatly improve your financial team’s agility.


 

To learn more, read our white paper titled “Building the Business Case for Cloud-Based Planning and Reporting” and get ready to gain more agility in your 2017 budgeting and planning.

 

Share This Article
Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

AI and data mining
What the Rise of AI Web Scrapers Means for Data Teams
Artificial Intelligence Big Data Exclusive
power supplies for ATX for data scientists
Why Data Scientists Should Care About SFX Power Supplies
Big Data Exclusive
AI for website optimization
Free Tools to Test Website Accessibility
Artificial Intelligence Exclusive
Generative AI models
Thinking Machines At Work: How Generative AI Models Are Redefining Business Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence Business Intelligence Exclusive Infographic Machine Learning

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
33.7kFollowersFollow
222FollowersPin

You Might also Like

ai disaster management technology
News

Can AI Help with Disaster Preparation Technology?

8 Min Read

Marketing Execs VS Market Research Execs

2 Min Read

Book Review: Social Media Analytics by Marshall Sponder

4 Min Read
Image
Cloud Computing

How Cloud Computing Benefits Your Company

21 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

AI chatbots
AI Chatbots Can Help Retailers Convert Live Broadcast Viewers into Sales!
Chatbots
data-driven web design
5 Great Tips for Using Data Analytics for Website UX
Big Data

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?