Achieving Intelligent Financial Planning & Analysis Transformation with a Maturity Model

0:15thank you so much for joining we're going to give people a few more moments

0:21to trickle their way into the session so feel free to get yourself settled grab a coffee

0:26um and we'll just leave it for a few more minutes before we get the session started

0:34foreign

1:05questions

1:31okay seeing that people have started to make their way into the session and the

1:36room is starting to fill up I would introduce myself so my name is Taryn

1:41sebula and I'm a senior manager of member engagement here at the Toronto region Board of Trade today we have a

1:48very exciting Workshop planned for you all in this morning's session hosted by our valued members board International

1:55we will share with you a model built with a focus on achieving maturity in

2:01the financial planning and Analysis process during this morning's Workshop you'll learn how the maturity level

2:07within each category will help you understand and create an intelligent transformation strategy

2:14how to optimize your available resources including people process and technology and where your FP a team ranks in its

2:23confidence index and how you can develop and Implement an effective business planning process

2:30so just a quick note some of you may have noticed that there was a speaker change unfortunately Jeff Miller was

2:37unable to join us however we are in excellent hands as Michael Lee's head of

2:42pre-sales at board has stepped in to manage and host the session for us so it's bound to be an insightful and

2:48interesting hour before we begin I'd like to acknowledge that Toronto is

2:53home to diverse First Nations Inuit and metis people though you could be watching from anywhere the board's

3:00offices are located on the traditional territory of many indigenous Nations and

3:05with that I'll now pass the mic over to Michael to get us started all right

3:11thank you Taryn just give me a second to share my screen and we'll go ahead and get started and just Karen you just tell

3:18me when you can see my screen and you can still hear me loud and clear

3:26there we go we're great on our side Michael take it away all right perfect well good morning

3:33good afternoon everybody as Taryn Mitch my name is Mike please I am the head of pre-sales here for board Americas uh

3:41subsidiary of board International uh today's presentation really is a stepwise approach towards intelligent

3:48planning for financial planning and Analysis or the short acronym as you can see fpna as we all know it so before we

3:56get started let me just give you a brief introduction of who I am and then we'll go through today's presentation and

4:02we'll leave at the end time for uh some questions as well as some responses for

4:07myself if there's anything I can't answer I'll be happy to take it away and get you an answer to follow up

4:13all right so let's go ahead and get started so

4:18quick snapshot or quick bio of who I am so as you can see my name is Michael lease I sometimes go by Mike so either

4:25or I do answered almost anything uh so I am a CPA MBA and I tend to joke that my

4:31CPA for many of those years that I sat in the office of Finance stood for copy paste and attached if you've never heard

4:37the joke before so I've spent a little over 30 years of you name it anywhere from financial

4:44management experience to accounting to business planning Financial systems and lastly I've spent probably the last 12

4:5013 years pretty much on the sales side uh from a pre-sales perspective I think

4:55it's the best job nobody ever told me about so if I had the opportunity to go back I would have started that pre-sales

5:02experience much much sooner but as you can see right I've done a lot of things in a lot of different organizations over

5:09the course of time I have been primarily focused on the EPM world I did take a

5:14little short venture outside and determine quickly and easily that yep stay back where the accountants and

5:21finance folks are so I spent a little over 20 plus years working in the office

5:26of Finance in various roles anywhere from a controller uh to the head of fpna

5:31for local companies as well as Global organizations and as you can see at the

5:36bottom I've worked for a few different Industries anywhere from mining to manufacturing to utilities sometimes

5:44that's an exercise in futility probably the second joke I'll tell you it's a distribution to financial and as well as

5:51Professional Services so that's just a short bio of Who I Am What I've Done

5:57where I've been uh just keep in mind I am an accountant for first and foremost

6:02but I am not an I.T guy by any stretch of the imagination so anything I

6:07typically talk about is the ability to point and click drag and drop I'm never going to ask you to write code or learn

6:14code in any solutions I've ever worked with or sold to again counting first and

6:21foremost code in my world typically meant it hurts my head and I'm not here to do that right I fully understand

6:28everybody has a full-time job and really I'm just trying to show you the I think the wisdom of what fpna is and where it

6:35needs to go future so let's go ahead and get started so the fpna board maturity model again

6:44there was a research or survey done uh that talked to folks all over you know a

6:49couple well in this case clever probably closed about a thousand different organizations uh it was developed by

6:55tons of different practitioners within the fpna space so if you sat in the office of Finance it's anywhere from the

7:03accountants that closed the books to the folks that pretty much do all those internal models to build those budgets

7:08those forecasts and do a variety of reporting of slice and dice the information to get answers in the right

7:15hands to the folks so they can make those all important decisions to drive companies forward

7:20but there are six categories we're going to focus in that we've gleamed from all

7:25the analysis all the feedback that we've gotten from all the FPA Financial uh professionals all throughout the world

7:32all right it focuses on leadership functional skills the business

7:37partnering and collaboration the process the data and analytics and that last

7:43piece is why we're here today right it's all about the technology moving you from those I'll call it traditional Excel

7:50spreadsheets I would have joke that I would have said Lotus and that's pretty much where I started right so I've

7:56started with 13 column paper to Lotus and I do miss it because I like the acronym of wysiwyg what you see is what

8:04you get but that'll be the third joke I tell you so as you can see I try to keep this

8:10pretty light right because uh while we're here so let's go ahead and get started so the traditional look and

8:17feel what I talk about from a planning aspect is that traditional approach right and it's seven buckets right it's

8:24anywhere from how long does it take to build a traditional annual operating

8:29plan on average it's 12 months right and occasionally you have some updates here

8:34and there that either you do it monthly or quarterly or in some cases I've worked for companies that do it

8:40semi-annually what's the overall approach well as you can see traditional wise

8:46everything is in a silo right the Strategic aspect is done on the back of a paper napkin an envelope sitting down

8:53with my boss or my boss's boss but there was no tie back to that overall financial model where you built it from

8:59the bottom up and that last piece it never tied to anything that was operational related

9:05right so what are the sales folks doing do we have enough inventory production wise what are our new Services aspect do

9:13we have enough people to actually manage or service the business if business booms

9:19third piece right we talk about the content are these political it can be very political in nature because they're

9:26pretty much pre-negotiated budgets right you have to be it X from a departmental expense

9:32perspective and what's the overall investment either from a capital planning or what's that

9:37three five year outlook and how does that tie back if I start to do it from a bottom-up approach

9:43but the method right it's a modeling driven by strategic objectives of based

9:49on historical actions because that's really all we have to go on but imagine now if you can bring in both those

9:55external as well as new internal drivers that drives your business forward the last three it's all about the tools

10:01what are the tools that typically accountants or Finance folks like to play with well typically it's Excel and

10:09through my many years of experience right you're going to have to pry that from my dead cold hands is pretty much what most

10:16accounts are financed to help folks tell me because that's what they love but I've done it both sides right from

10:22that manual experience to let's put in a consolidation system to either consolidate the data or aggregate the

10:28data the last piece or the last two pieces we talk about the duration of how long should it take versus how long should it

10:35really take now they have listed here it's typically one to three months on average so I have

10:41gone through experiences where it takes up to six months to build an annual operating plan and by the end of those

10:48six months that information is already old and outdated so what am I playing with what's the Benchmark it's old

10:54information and lastly is what is the output right typically it's a single financial plan

11:01that ultimately gets produced that ultimately gets signed off by your board of directors your head of the company and there's a variety of maybe five or

11:09six key kpis that we're managing the business by we all know today's world right you need

11:16multiple scenarios multiple kpis to manage that business from the top to the

11:21bottom and from the bottom to the top so again that's just a traditional what I I

11:26typically have seen but as you can see that the new wave or the new world is

11:32what will revolve more around that scenario management aspect right rolling plans updating this information moving

11:39it from that 12 to maybe that 15 18 month Mark but it's a rolling forecast where you're looking at the next three

11:46months in a little bit more detail-oriented fashion and moving it from separate to a single integrated

11:53platform that focuses and ties everything together right strategic financial and that last component is so

12:01important it's the operational piece and the content right moving more

12:06towards that driver-based planning as we walk through today's presentation what you're going to find or what you already

12:12probably already know is most companies it's just a handful of drivers that they're using but there's

12:17so many more factors out there today that you need to incorporate much much more in order to be much more successful

12:24the last couple pieces we talked about it's the modeling right it's driven not only by internal or just a set of few

12:30kpis or metrics you need to invoke both the internal as well as external events

12:36that are impacting your business right case in point covid right pretty much closed down in the world regardless of

12:43what country you're sitting in Supply chains were ruined things were just turned upside down in a short couple of

12:49months and now it's taking even longer to dig our way out of it the tools right I talked about the

12:56manual process but imagine now if you can start to automate and use more Advanced Analytical systems now I've sat

13:03in the office of finance and typically the tools that my boss said you can play with are Excel and we'll give you as

13:09many bodies to do it as humanly possible but we know that humans make mistakes think that thing or a digit from here to

13:15there I know because I'm guilty of doing it but the beauty here is a with board and

13:21many other vendors that you're going to see or play with in the market is the ability to automate the information store it and get those tools that I call

13:30you know it's anywhere from the bi the business intelligence to predictive analytic tools or the artificial

13:36intelligence need to start incorporating those types of

13:41Financial tools or not only financial tools but just tools analytic in nature that can now analyze a boatload of

13:47information to isolate the individual trends that are affecting your business

13:52not only today but into the future time wise right the ability to speed it

13:58up that's what we're all talking about because we need information faster to make those all-important business

14:03decisions and the last piece really is the output moving it from a single to a multiple

14:08scenario in the fact that it's just not best case worst case defensive case you need multiple

14:15scenarios to plan for multiple things that are going to affect your business okay so again that's just me high level

14:21talking about from a traditional aspect of where we are to where we need to be

14:31just gonna move one thing out of my way all right so let me take you on the Journey of what the fpna maturity has

14:38seen or what I've seen throughout and a lot of this applies to not only my experience over the last 30 years but I

14:45believe a lot of what you're experiencing today first and foremost so five different levels right it's

14:51anywhere from that basic understanding of what are we playing with today and it's really you know it's it could be

14:58that simple Excel spreadsheet that sits in the hands of that individual that sits in fpna and he's having a sidebar

15:04conversation with his boss or his boss's boss it's as simple as that there's no technology in place very few analytics

15:11are involved here very few kpis there's not a whole lot of thought but that basic approach is really political in

15:18nature it's really my boss's boss telling us where the gold needs to be how you get there entirely up to you

15:25the second piece is how we want to start to develop those traditional basic plans add a few more tools into the toolbox so

15:32to speak right take you from that basic analytic reporting driver aspect to I need now

15:38need some planning models and some tools to go with it that are more than 13 column paper I joke uh to that Lotus

15:46Excel aspect right but need to now put it more into a defined Outlook step number three it's

15:53now to have more eyes on the goal of where you're going to be long term as

15:58opposed to that short-term Outlook give you more analytical mindsights more analysts more folks from a variety of

16:05different business Parts within your organization it's more of that partnership all along

16:12defining the process automating the data where you can and we'll get into the

16:17data aspect of it throughout today's survey or today's presentation I should say and make it more driver based in

16:24nature but those drivers need to not only be internal but external as well and that getting sort of trying to

16:31either get away from that heavy Reliance I.T because in finances world right it's

16:36a small team so it's do more with less but the ultimate goal right is to get

16:42more to steps four and five from an advanced leading perspective right leadership Embraces change it makes

16:49long-term decisions with that strategic vision in mind right make FPA a true

16:56player at the table to help you make those sound business decisions because right we're the gatekeeper of all the

17:02information regardless of where it comes from but somehow we know how to aggregate consolidate those key

17:09components of your business and basically put pen to paper simple as that

17:15but that last piece that leading this is ultimately where everybody wants to get to how they get to that stage on their

17:22Journey it's not easy it's going to be a struggle there's a few factors that come into play when we ultimately get there

17:29but number five leading that's ultimately at the end of the day that's the uh

17:34the end of the rainbow so to speak

17:42here we go so let's just talk about the leading State that's really where I want to focus the bulk of my attention today

17:49of take you from that basic aspect of where we were and now build the bridge to get

17:55you to what's going to take to get to that leading state so there's six categories we talked about up front

18:00right it's the leadership the functional skills the collaboration the process the analytics and last piece is the

18:07technology component so from a leadership perspective it's

18:13really that buy-in it starts from the top all the way through the organization so if you have solid leadership that

18:19says hey we need to start to plan or align the company based on let's do an

18:24actual business plan whether it's that first 12 months or that three to five year strategic plan but make sure that

18:31we promote it all the way through because change is good and I'll talk about a little bit later on some of my

18:37experience with maybe some of the companies I've worked for when we talk about change and change comes in many

18:44flavors but that last piece around leadership it's really talking about the analytics from a base decision-making

18:50process but the function of skills are K right we're talking about a foundation of how

18:56you get to that leading State there's six categories the functional aspect right I need a team that's highly

19:02disciplined from an approach standpoint I need folks that can analyze the data make sure that my data is clean right

19:09I've demonstrated products in the EPM world to thousands of companies and if I had a

19:17nickel or a dollar for every time somebody says yeah our data is dirty and it's like I'm not surprised I am not

19:23shocked because just that the consolidation of information within any

19:28organization regardless of where it comes from whether it comes from your Erp whether it comes from an HCM or a

19:34CRM system or in sometimes just homegrown systems that are just truly outdated because our businesses have

19:41grown it and we've exceeded those limitations at the last the last functional skill in

19:47there it's really about the training it's the investment that the organization wants to take in the individuals to grow the business

19:54step number three important very important to me is really from a collaboration standpoint right you have all the information what do you do with

20:01it well obviously the folks in finance or accounting those are the trusted advisors of all the information from a

20:07data perspective right are our numbers even right if you don't have that as the starting

20:12point you gotta have to start over right redo the ship or rebuild the foundation but it's all about telling how I'm going

20:19to tell that story right is information that you put out into the market is it negative but you want to spin it in such

20:26a positive light that we have a plan of action of how we can reduce that or increase it or make it

20:31better but it's all about building a team and making that team be accountable

20:37now to the right we talked about the process the analytics and the technology every organization it's like building a

20:43house right you're going to start with the foundation you're going to start to build some rooms

20:48redesign it build it and then redo it again and again and again until that

20:53process is running like a fine oiled machine and that first bullet truly is my goal in

20:59most organizations I've worked for right it's all about the Strategic the business and the operational plans and

21:05all three need to be fully in line fully in sync not meaning three separate pieces of information that I sat down

21:13and did on the back of an envelope but I can't tie it to a business plan that goes from the top to the bottom oh yeah

21:19by the way I didn't include manufacturing production or demand because I don't really want to know what

21:24they want to do in that process you need to be fully aligned and it's a cycle right from a life cycle perspective

21:30you're going to grow you're going to have some challenges some pain points but you will overcome it eventually

21:38as we start to talk about the data in the analytics aspect right everybody wants and I've heard this multiple times

21:44is your data real time real time sure it says real time or

21:51close to real time is humanly possible as the transaction gets booked in your Erp I want to be able to pull that

21:56across into my fpna model well there are links there are tools there are bridges that

22:02with even within board we can build those that logic because the minute

22:07information changes in one place it's updated somewhere else and it's available to a variety of different

22:12individuals that they can now use that as part of their workflow process to better understand

22:17information changes whether it's the metadata as we add new products we add new companies we add new accounts

22:24everybody's fully aligned the next couple pieces here right it's

22:29all about the drivers the analytical drivers that are either internal or external so now we want to bring in a

22:35new group of analytics right these are new words to Most accountants or Finance folks probably not in the last five or

22:40ten but to the older group yeah predictive prescriptive analytics artificial intelligence machine learning

22:47you know based on those individual trends of how we're doing things it's not looking at just how many products

22:53that we sell it's like well who are we selling those products to who's buying it what's the price margin based on that

22:59things of that nature what's the traffic coming through our stores what are the external factors that are affecting our

23:05business these are the type of analytics that you now need to incorporate into those models versus the traditional

23:11approach that we talked about the variety of different scenarios this

23:17is important right best case worst case right as I mentioned before covet hits Global warm or climate warming too is

23:24now affecting many organizations as well as many countries as how they start to plan on an ongoing basis but that last

23:32bullet you know dovetail into the next one is it's a three-way model right not

23:37only do I include the Strategic the business the operational but I want to be able to create that p l that balance

23:43sheet and that cash flow those three things are have to be fully integrated from a data perspective

23:50the last component we talked about it's all about the technology right it's I need a solution or I need a tool or I

23:56need a product that a can fully integrate all of my data sets both Financial

24:03as well as operational information to store in one place from a Version Control perspective that now makes it

24:10flexible easy to use for any user in my organization from the top to the bottom that now makes it the

24:17ability to do self-service reporting I hear this time and time again that we need to make sure that our end user

24:24Community our business users can access the data quickly and easily without having to write any code or going back

24:31to it to ask for another report they want to be able to point and click drag and drop it's as simple as that

24:38but any models you start to build right from to bridge the gap from a driver base to a business intelligence Bridge

24:46the technology needs to be there you need to easily automate the approach from a data perspective that goes back

24:53to the integration aspect and it's real-time collaboration right making sure that all folks are fully

24:59understanding throughout your organization of who's doing what and when they're doing it and that last piece it's really I need

25:06to be able to digitize right I need to get into the move from Excel spreadsheets where it's very siled in

25:12nature where it's very two-dimensional rows and columns to more of that on-demand planning as information

25:19changes whether it's on the minute the hour the month the quarter or even just

25:24annually you have the ability to make those changes quickly and easily and get the information or disseminate the

25:31information into the right hands at the right time

25:37so let's quickly just talk about some of the results based on the survey that we got back

25:43so I think a lot of this you're not going to be surprised when I looked at this I was like wow really it's almost

25:48like time has not changed over the last 30 years so you're starting to see small inroads into this uh but

25:56change is good it just takes a long time to get there so overall assessment is

26:01what we found is really just in that leading category only two percent of the overall organizations are actually doing

26:08that today there's more than 75 of everybody else goes from the basic to the defined to

26:15developing there's still sort of trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up they either don't have the

26:21right leadership the right resources or you know the money that's available to

26:26invest within their own organization to grow the culture and grow the data aspect of where you need to be long term

26:33a lot of these companies that fall in that 75 bucket really still thinking small versus what do I need to do and

26:41best wise to get it to a larger aspect get it into the hands of more individuals all throughout the

26:47organization now a couple of those bullets that we talked about of from attracting those

26:53organizations the one that came up the most was driver-based planning

26:58and we found surprisingly enough that 50 of organizations are doing that or what are the other 50s still doing right so

27:05they're a little bit behind the times but there's plenty of room for change in this aspect so you can see at the top right six

27:11percent still they're not using any drivers it's really back of the envelope paper napkin kind of aspect and is

27:19really political in nature I need my Revenue my bottom line to be X at the

27:25end of the day so whether I'm playing or working for a privately held company or a publicly traded company you'll still

27:32find that they still it's very political in nature from a numbers perspective right

27:38second piece in there is yeah 50 are using some types of drivers and these

27:43could be just yeah it's five or six different kpis but that's where it ends right imagine

27:50running your business off of we only have six five or six drivers that really control the business in some

27:55organizations that might be the case in much more complex organizations

28:01definitely not the case bullets three and four right twenty percent twenty seven percent are

28:07starting to use that fully driver based but it's not a connected or integrated plan meaning the p l the balance sheet

28:15the cash flow this is where you ultimately want to get to from a driver-based planning that's

28:20incorporating internal as well as external drivers that were ultimately going to affect that three-way driver

28:27based modeling component

28:32so that third or second category we talk about really it's incorporating what we

28:39call the the new tools to the trade so when I first came out of college I don't

28:44think I ever even heard the term Predictive Analytics well because half the time I'd even have an email when it

28:50came out of college I sometimes date myself right my kids will joke at me that I live my life through a

28:55spreadsheet it's partially true and partially guilty but the idea of understanding Predictive Analytics right

29:01artificial intelligence machine learning right 20 years ago those Concepts were relatively new now

29:08they're full-blown their existence if you're not using it you're missing the bigger picture right so as you can see

29:15as we go through this chart right 38 of all organizations that we've surveyed they have no plans for any of this to

29:22incorporate that in their business that could be I'm missing 38 of My overall plan because I didn't want to invest in

29:29technology majority of companies or another third of them are saying yep I'm going to plan

29:35to do this in maybe two years well that's two years too late 18 we're getting closer to the goal

29:41right six months but of all the organizations we surfed right 500 000

29:46companies only a 10 margin of them or ten percent of the overall pool are starting to incorporate Predictive

29:53Analytics the machine learning the business intelligence the artificial intelligence into their overall FPA

30:00model so where are organizations tracking as far

30:07as culture and data right so I've lived this experience I used to work for a water utility back in the day

30:14and I'll walk you through some of these points but I think they're pretty relevant so 20 years ago I worked for an

30:19organization i i s uh they were a company large multi multi-national utility power company uh

30:27based in Germany was buying other components throughout the world they decided to buy something in the U.S

30:33because they had already bought something in the UK I wound up working for the UK version of this prior to

30:39working for the U.S right once everything once the acquisition went through but the idea here is it was a

30:46culture Clash so I had the US that did not like change I worked for the Brits

30:52or the UK folks they just hit the ground and kept going the German aspect of the

30:57business was they treated like a scientific experiment they wanted to understand and break it down from the

31:02bottom all the way to the top and just for fun from a cultural experience there was a component that we

31:08sat in Chile that we would basically just acquire operating units and work with the government down there so when I

31:16taught culture Clash right us UK Germany and Chile all right four different

31:21worlds four different unique cultures of how they look at information and how you're supposed to break down cultural

31:28barriers to organize those companies to make things go or align everybody on the

31:34same page very difficult in nature but the idea from a cultural dative perspective right

31:40it's the challenge of breaking down those barriers remember us UK Germany as

31:46well as Chile just for fun right and often that culture is you know analytical not analytical and

31:53perpetuates dysfunctional and efficient processes all throughout the organization because everybody looks at

31:58their business a completely different way or from a cultural standpoint of where they sit they don't know any

32:04better it's really just this is the way we've done it and we don't know another way to do it

32:10and that last component it's so true right as 10 of most organizations we serve it right they don't have the

32:18ability to look at data and analytics from a strategic standpoint they don't really understand what their data

32:23hierarchies are right I've done this for 20 almost 30 years more or less I've

32:29done it from a demonstration perspective walking into an organization and nine times out of ten they say get our data

32:35is dirty we don't understand our architectural structures we basically just add things willy-nilly uh without

32:41any checks or balances but obviously those leading organizations now they're starting to

32:46fine-tune they're starting to transform how they need to do things in order to survive

32:52okay so let's talk about how we move fpna to

32:58the next level right get you to that leading stage there's nine steps in how we're going to

33:04get there right we're going to start at the bottom I'm going to talk about these three at a time

33:09the way I've decided to group it is that we talk about it from a leadership and cultural aspect understanding data

33:16quality throw in the collaboration component talk about key drivers key drivers can

33:22be both internal as well as external understanding that driver-based model

33:28right p l balance sheet as well as cash flow and now mix in the analytics from

33:33an artificial intelligence slash machine learning perspective it's not just about

33:38the numbers it's about all right we sell a product but who's buying the product what's the price component associated

33:45with that product right understanding if you're a retail organization traffic wise weather

33:51patterns what's affecting what one day versus the next and how can we learn from that we open up earlier or later

33:58close earlier later and then we want to start to implement a fully integrated system bringing data

34:05from all walks of life into one well you'll hear the term data repository

34:10whether it's a data warehouse a data Lake and pretty soon I'm sure they're going to come up with a third data

34:16component we have a chance to name that one all right but then once all the data is

34:21fully aligned we know where it all comes from the ability to start automating the routine is it we're going to do this

34:26every hour do this every day every week every month things of that nature and the last two components all

34:33important right you can not only just be a single scenario management team or organization we need to rely on best

34:40case worst case if things go in a certain direction and that last piece in giving

34:46information to the leaders of your teams or your organization at any level within

34:51the organization to make decisions based on the information that they have at hand to make sure is it right is it

34:58wrong and can we rely on it and can we make the decisions based on that information

35:03so let's start to walk through each of the nine steps so the first three we talked we talked a

35:09little bit earlier about the leadership and culture this is first and foremost what I always found important in some of

35:16the companies I've worked for this will either make your organization succeed or in some cases really it's going to fail

35:23and then you're open for acquisition or they simply just close the doors and you go out of business but the idea here

35:29behind the leadership and culture of what do we want to be when we grow up we want to be able to engage Champions

35:35within each area of the business have a leader within those individual groups and then we can start to disseminate

35:42that cultural aspect down into those individual groups all throughout your organization it's the ability to start

35:48to promote change we talk about this now it's just a matter of we need to do it

35:54as well as that last component we talked about is the Foster the analytical approach to enable decision-making

36:01processes at every level or every facet within the company or organization

36:08the second component of this I talked a lot about it earlier is it's the data quality isn't my data right wrong

36:15different right but I need to be able to understand the quality of the

36:20information of how we're transforming it from one place to another how we can interpret it understand and map out that

36:27data architecture right it's the foundation of any application or any solution you start to build start to

36:35utilize start to implement it's all about the transformation of what your data will ultimately look like

36:41third component right need to work as a team we need collaboration all throughout the organization for every

36:47different department to understand what drives the business forward in order to

36:53move that business forward we need technology we need a better platform yes Excel is a great tool at some point but

37:00it truly is not meant to be a database it's siled in nature and it's two-dimensional you need to think long

37:08term or big picture is multi-dimensional understanding each buy of your business

37:13right I want to look at it by company by country by location uh by product by

37:19service line things of that nature the next three components along that

37:26path to fpna success or fpna gold standard I'll call it right is the key drivers

37:33it's the driver-based planning that's that last component right I need to be able to integrate all throughout my

37:39organization from the Strategic to the business to the operations

37:44first component right talk about the drivers of what drives your business both internally as well as externally

37:51they don't have to just be Financial drivers of your business they can be any metric throughout your organization from

37:58the financial to the operational but now we need to be able to connect that organization at every level

38:04understanding the goals did we meet or exceed it and if we didn't or if we did

38:09there's an explanation that goes along with it and then that information can be disseminated up or down

38:16driver-based plans the ability to now Implement those key business drivers

38:22into multiple facets in your business plan whether you do it for the next three weeks the next three months or the

38:29next three years the ability to incorporate those drivers all throughout

38:34and now as we start to rely on technology right it's the AI it's machine learning components the ability

38:40to now shorten those planning cycles of going from the traditional yes let's start around July to kick off the

38:47Strategic plan move into August September for the first cut first pass of rolling information out to the end

38:54user community and then getting that draft version back and starting to tweak

38:59tweak and tweak the numbers to gets to the right driver right expectation or right goal

39:07of where we need that plan or forecast to be but that last component right the ability to now not only just make it a p

39:14l exercise and I hear this a lot is now to make incorporate that through your balance sheet through your cash flow and

39:22those last two components typically are formulaic in nature but you need them to at least be there and what level of

39:28granularity do you want to move to when we talk about cash flow I want to focus more around the working capital

39:34components right understanding the accounts receivable the accounts payable as well as the inventory those three are

39:41important components in any organization are we collecting our cash faster are we

39:46paying our bills too quickly and do we have enough inventory on hand to from a

39:51supply demand perspective the last component there we talked about integrated business plans the ability to

39:58Now link that strategic goal to your bottom up or top down or middle out combination thereof but to also include

40:05the operational aspects of that overall plan and then it's not only just you know one

40:11way to look at it we need to explore both the horizontal the vertical as well

40:16as that cross organizational integration throughout the company today

40:23the last three I'll call them success metrics to get there or categories right the ability to automate that routine to

40:31provide additional scenario planning and ultimately make those decisions based on

40:36the information through one through eight steps let's talk about it so the ability to automate the routine

40:43right deploy a planning platform move it from Excel into a database that database

40:50can be made up of multiple cubes and I tend to joke from time to time a cube can be a dirty word to an accountant

40:57it's just think about it World in your world it's a place to store all your information

41:02both financial and non-financial and utilize that information consistently all across the platform

41:10the ability now to move from those manual tasks that are typically carried out by your FPA teams to start to

41:16automate those processes put a workflow process in place to understanding at any

41:21moment's time you can understand who's doing what and when they're doing it and who can do what at any point in time

41:29but you also want to empower the end user Community or any user in your organization I hear this a lot right

41:35when they look at a product or they look at a new solution is it going to be easy to use

41:41nine times or most of the time it's like yeah it looks good but the end user

41:46Community still relies heavily on I still like doing it the way I used to do it in Excel can I just stay there

41:52because I like the model I like the copy and paste aspect of it but really in any

41:58modern solution you're going to go with the ability for users to look at a chart look at a graph and be able to drill

42:05down into it so within the board platform specifically you have the

42:10ability to drill down drill through drill across and drill back to transactional level detail if you so

42:16desire but it's any data source but most Finance folks we start with that Erp

42:22system because that's where our financials are stored from an actual perspective so that's the information we

42:27start to build on but imagine now if you can drill back into an HCM system a CRM

42:32system your data warehouse your data Lake to capture each component of your business and use that to start to

42:39automate your plans going forward the second component here scenario planning right

42:45I told you this before right the ability to move from that single version of the truth or what the future thinks it needs

42:52to be that annual operating plan that we did it for the well next 12 months but

42:57by the time we're finished a lot of that information is already 6 to 12 months old so now the information from a

43:04scenario planning perspective needs to be real time you need to have active drivers both internal as well as

43:10external but also we need multiple views of the business right it's best case

43:15worst case high medium and low you know futuristic turns to include things from

43:21a strategic initiative perspective do I want to include it are we opening up a new plant a new office

43:26introducing a new product or a service within the business model that we didn't have yesterday or if we're not going to

43:33grow organically are we going to go through acquisition if we incorporate that acquisition

43:39what's the timeline how are we going to transform that their world into our world so we can aggregate or consolidate

43:46that information and look at it consistently the ultimate goal here right it's

43:52getting getting down to that decision-making process the ability to link that three-way model from your

43:58strategic to your business to your operational plan but consistently have that thing going all the time because

44:06even though you do that one-off planning process today it's an ongoing

44:11process information changes every single day the world changes every single day so your model just can't be stagnant it

44:19needs to be flexible and automate the process going forward and that last component really we talked

44:24touched on this earlier is the ability to explore it in multiple different Fashions both horizontally vertically

44:31and all across your organization from an integration standpoint

44:38and lastly as we start to wrap this up and we'll move towards the some questions is the aspect is there's a

44:44full-blown this is the full-blown actual uh paper that was written there's a link at the bottom that will take you to a

44:51free copy from a research perspective but at this point I'm going to tan this

44:56back to Taran to open it up for questions uh and then from there feel

45:01free to reach out to me I believe my information will be shared or copied somewhere within this group uh again I'm

45:07really here more from a trusted advisor perspective standpoint that I've done this for a

45:13little over 30 years and I've done it anywhere from yes 13 column paper to Lotus to Excel and I grew up and became

45:21a big boy because now I can play with automated Solutions on a analytical platform okay so I appreciate the time

45:28and looking forward to some of the questions that the group has to offer as well so Taryn let me pass it back to you

45:36foreign thanks for that Michael so yeah we're gonna open up the floor to a q a period

45:42so if anyone has any questions for Michael feel free to either pop them in

45:48the chat I'll be moderating the Q a period or alternatively um if you'd like to raise your hand we'd

45:53like to uh hopefully be able to organize this portion of the session and be able to take questions in the orders that

46:00they're received um so again either the chat or if you want to raise your hand we'll keep an

46:05eye on that but um Michael I do actually have a couple of questions that uh that came through throughout your

46:12presentation so maybe we can get started with those to get the ball rolling so the first one being

46:18um this all sounds great but at the moment I'd be happy just not to be drowning in spreadsheets where do I

46:25start uh so obviously I show up at the door when people are to this stage of the

46:31game they said I've done the world of excel it's fun as I mentioned before

46:37right it's two-dimensional but the idea the first step within if you're trying to move to an application like board is

46:43understanding the foundation understanding not only the short-term goals but the long-term goals of where a

46:50solution like board can move all of your data within a data repository but also

46:55now give the end users the same flexibility that they used to do in Excel and there are still add-ins that

47:01we can utilize in products like board is to put you in a better position to verify that all the data no longer plays

47:08in Excel spreadsheets where individual users insert rows delete columns overwrite your calculated formulas

47:15that alleviates at probably at least 75 of what a typical FPA manager or FPA

47:21director spends most of their time on is verifying that the data the data they

47:26received after they gather and collect it is to be able to tick in time right so it's tick and tie is part of my DNA I

47:35need to verify that all the information is correct in some fashion but the ability here is to move

47:41you from that Excel World to more of that automated data repository that now we can always now pull your data in and

47:48look at your actual history and use that history or historical actuals or historical information along financials

47:55or operational data and move it towards to the ability to plan and forecast for not only at a top level but also at a

48:02much more granular dimensionality basis as well so start to include things like markets or channels or products or

48:09Services things that drive your business but sometimes you just don't have access to that level of granularity but within

48:16Solutions like board you now can and it opens up the future of trying to move your world from that basic to that

48:24long-term goal of I want to be a leader okay great thanks for the question yep great

48:31thank you for the question and uh and for that answer the next one is is I

48:37believe more of a comment uh but maybe you can speak to it so um this individual mentioned a big

48:43problem we have is Version Control and people overwriting other people's forecast numbers or the right people

48:49making the changes but we've still got to figure out what they changed it's looking like a needle in a haystack yeah

48:56yeah thanks thanks for the question uh again I've experienced this I've lived

49:01this and I've heard it multiple times lots of times uh from any Prospect or

49:07customer that I've ever worked with right version control is how do I name how do I know that my data is actually

49:13accurate who changed what when they did it this is all about putting in a workflow management system within any

49:20fpna tool or even as part of your closed process right there's a checklist that

49:25either I kept in my head or I actually put pen to paper and had a little Excel spreadsheet that tracked who's doing

49:32what and when they're doing it these are the dates and times and this is who approved it in Solutions like board this

49:37is where you can start to automate that workflow process and put alerts put traffic lighting disseminate reports

49:43quickly and easily as opposed to reproducing the wheel or reproducing and Ticking and tying and Gathering

49:50collecting all that information to make that information look and feel in a certain way within Solutions like boards you can

49:56create those dashboards that have alerts that already have predefined hey here's the question that

50:02I want to ask and now you can start to have that Interactive interactive communication or interaction

50:08with each of those individuals real time as opposed to yes I mean email shoot me

50:14a text call me on the phone and leave me a voicemail and get back to it when I'm not busy Welcome to our world so all the

50:20information needs to be real time but from a Version Control perspective is all right I may have multiple scenarios

50:27but I have one version of the truth which one are we going to promote to the top uh and like Solutions like board as I

50:34mentioned before from a solution perspective the board can provide all that and so much more okay but excellent

50:40question thank you for the comment excellent thanks Michael so we have

50:45another question in the chat and and thank you to everyone who sent questions so far feel free to keep sending them

50:51through the chat or alternatively for anyone who may have missed it feel free to raise your hand if you'd like to personally ask Michael your question as

50:58well um but to keep the ball rolling is part of excuse me this q a period the next

51:03question we've got in the chat is will you share the presentation so for anyone who's interested in receiving a copy is

51:11there a way for them to reach out to you directly um or to you know grab your your contact

51:16details to arrange to have a a copy sent over to them

51:21yes so part of this presentation is I believe there will be a link made available of the actual physical presentation as you can see on the

51:29screen there's a link to the actual copy of the white paper I'll call it and

51:35lastly my contact information really is just m lease at board.com that's that's

51:40probably the easiest way to contact me directly uh and I'll feel free to again act as a trusted advisor if Ford is the

51:47ultimate solution for you I'll work with you if it's not I'll point you in the right direction as well

51:54excellent and with your permission Michael I'm actually going to pop into the chat for everyone to see I'm going to put enlist at board.com

52:01for your contact details so anyone who's interested can feel free to reach out to Michael directly and I guess as a

52:08follow-up question that I see here in the chat that's related if anyone was interested in in reaching

52:14out to you outside of arranging to get a copy of the presentation could anyone

52:19potentially arrange to receive a demo through you uh or would it be best for them to go through your website what

52:24would be the appropriate Channel uh you can reach out to me direct I'll point you in the right direction uh

52:31we'll gather some information but yeah you can start with me as your starting point I believe you can even go

52:37onboard.com I believe there's a window there we can view any of the demos or go

52:42online to set up uh an appointment with one of our sales Executives again it's

52:48sort of that chain of command uh but if you feel comfortable you can reach out to me easily Direct

52:54I'll respond uh as well you can obviously uh contact me on LinkedIn as well so there's a profile again social

53:00media aspect there's there's my plug for me that's it but yeah perfect perfect so for everyone

53:07again Michael's contact details are in the chat and Lease board.com feel free

53:13to reach out to him directly um looking through I believe that's all

53:18the questions that we have in the chat uh are there any final questions that

53:25anyone has for Michael before we wrap up the session again feel free to pop any last minute questions or comments into

53:32the chat I'll be sure to catch wind of them or alternatively if you'd like to raise your hand and again have the

53:38opportunity to ask Michael directly or personally that's an option as well so we'll leave that for a couple minutes

53:46Michael I don't know if you have any sort of concluding remarks comments thoughts

53:51you'd like to leave with the group while we give them a a last-minute opportunity to to come up with any questions

53:58sure I'll just re-emphasize it so I've done this a long time uh first and

54:04foremost let me just thank uh Taran for putting this together uh and thank you guys for attending but

54:10really it's I'm here as a trusted advisor to help you point you in the right direction of how we can help you

54:15transform your organization to from the most basic to Leading or Cutting Edge

54:20But ultimately it's helping your organization succeed from an information perspective putting on the path to

54:27success but as you mentioned I really enjoyed the time we've really enjoyed presenting not only based on my

54:33experience but really what the survey came back with uh and sort of helping move those metrics

54:39or those percentages uh to the next bucket in line so to speak move it up to gold chain to the end of the rainbow so

54:45to speak so I appreciate the time thanks everybody thank you Taryn wonderful thank you Michael for an

54:52excellent session thank you everyone for attending we hope that that you enjoyed it I know I certainly did uh and we're

54:59so grateful to our valued members board International for putting this together for us so if anyone has any questions

55:05that come to mind after the session you do have Michael's contact details to feel free to to reach out to him

55:11directly or to us we'd be happy to facilitate that and uh to everyone who joined please keep an eye out to our

55:17events calendar on our website we'd love to see you join us for one of our future TR bot events so thanks again everyone

55:24thank you Michael thank you board and have a wonderful day