How can finance leaders attempt to make sense of the world in 2023? What kind of tools might help us make rapid, well-informed decisions? 

To describe the current landscape, adjectives such as volatile, unpredictable and chaotic are used liberally, and with good reason. But if planners and decision-makers are to adopt an appropriate approach to planning, perhaps a much more useful descriptor is ‘non-linear:’ the idea that cause and effect are seemingly disconnected or disproportionate. A recent evolution in business planning dubbed extended planning and analysis (xP&A) speaks directly to this reality. 

From political instability through to pressure to decarbonise, the problems companies face are becoming less localised. They do not respect business function boundaries and have consequences that are not always obvious.

So when yet another big external event looms into view, the natural assumption is that it will affect the business in some way. But when it comes to the detail; i.e. assessing precisely how, when, where and to what extent that event will have an impact, the picture can be unclear. This stymies good decision-making and resource allocation: in a non-linear world, even seemingly small operational decisions can have huge consequences, good or bad, with the link between cause and effect not immediately visible. 

How should planners respond to this? One obvious answer may be to bring more detailed information into the decision-making mix. But one recent survey suggested that the number of professionals who suffer from ‘information overload’ increased from 60% to 80% between 2020 and 2022. Merely adding more data to legacy planning processes in a non-linear environment can all too often be counterproductive; adding little to our understanding, and sometimes even increasing confusion. 

Against this backdrop, business leaders want more from planning. It is not just ‘more data’ (or even big data). They need faster, more accurate planning processes, where financial, strategic and operational plans are all in lock-step. They need visibility over all moving parts of the business, along with better linkages to early warning signals. They also need the ability to collaborate cross-functionally, test assumptions, ask ‘what if?’ and get answers they can rely on. 

Extended planning and analytics is a fresh approach to planning that enables finance leaders to realise this combination of capabilities. It can foster agility, i.e. the ability to pivot where needed in light of previously unpredicted events. But it does so in a way that can successfully link cause and effect, creating a truly holistic view across an entire enterprise. This is planning fit for a non-linear world.

Eliminating silos: the what and why of xP&A 

No department within an enterprise has a monopoly on planning. Finance obviously needs to maintain a strategic overview. Meanwhile however, sales, client relations, line-of-business development, HR and others will all have their own forecasts, targets, budgets and priorities to manage. xP&A does not seek to diminish this or to freeze stakeholders out of the planning process. Rather, it seeks to bring all those activities together to create a single, business-wide process. 

Gartner defines xP&A as, “The evolution of planning, combining financial and operational planning on a single composable platform.” An xP&A solution enables businesses to do three things: it provides for all planning activities on a single platform; it holds the data for those processes on that platform; it also has predictive learning and machine learning capabilities to help deliver more accurate insights. 

CCH Tagetik has been recognised as part of an elite group of CPM (corporate performance management) solutions capable of delivering the xP&A approach to planning. James McEntee, managing director of CCH Tagetik UK explains how xP&A has evolved: “Historically, businesses have worked out the likely demand for their products, how they are going to build them, where they are going to keep them and how they are going to ship them, and once those plans are approved by the CEO, they are passed on to the finance function.” 

He adds: “Finance would then determine how much it costs and allocate the money for it. But by bringing operations and finance together, companies can now see these plans and the final implications in full at every step, based on running multiple scenarios. By adopting this approach, businesses can transform their output and return on investment”. 

Under the traditional financial planning and analysis (FP&A) model, finance has ownership of the financial and strategic elements of performance management. Meanwhile, separate operational planning processes are happening elsewhere, utilising independent data silos. If finance wants to include planning information originating from other departments into its plans, data from an array of spreadsheets often has to be aggregated before being consolidated within the FP&A system. 

“There are inherent problems in using disparate spreadsheets from different systems,” says Mark Jenkins, chief finance officer at HR, payroll and finance software company MHR International. “It means you have to reconcile all this varied data, and that takes time. The ability to have one tool that allows a business to integrate disparate systems and have a single source of truth is invaluable. It allows you to pivot your strategies and make on-the-hoof decisions on information rather than using half finance and half guesswork. You’re not going to get a good decision that way.” 

With xP&A, businesses can establish a single reliable source for all data. There are no disparities or queries over where figures have come from, or what department-specific methodology has been used to arrive at them. With data silos removed, it can deliver a holistic view of business performance and enables you to assess the company-wide consequences of strategic, financial and operational decisions. 

Creating agility and responding to uncertainty 

Gartner estimates that by 2024, 70% of new FP&A projects will become extended planning and analysis projects. 

It is not surprising that finance leaders are adopting – or considering adopting – the xP&A approach at this particular time. We have all seen how the last couple of years have seen many businesses facing situations where they have had to think and act in completely new ways, making organisational agility an absolute imperative. 

True agility describes an organisation’s ability to respond in a timely manner to what may be completely unplanned or unpredicted events, where the outcomes seem uncertain. The characteristics of xP&A make it an especially useful approach for supporting the business in delivering this response. 

First, is the ability to respond in a timely manner. xP&A eliminates the need to reconcile and consolidate data from complex operational plans. Instead, it allows planners to gather all data types from the high to the detailed level all in one place, together with a strategic overlay. Without having to query the numbers or how they have been arrived at, xP&A puts decision-makers in a position to analyse, decide and act a lot quicker compared to legacy planning processes. 

Second, there’s the ability to navigate uncertainty, and make the right decisions in the face of previously unforeseen events. This is where the artificial intelligence-driven functionality of elite xP&A solutions – CCH Tagetik among them – is especially relevant. It allows business users to test assumptions on-demand through ‘what if’ analysis, alter the drivers in an instant, and use precise, AI-based forecasts to instantly view the impact of changes. When multiple options are on the table, it becomes possible to measure the likely business-wide consequences of each. 

Why xP&A? And why now? 

With any new approach to existing processes, these are the key questions. As for xP&A, the increasingly non-linear nature of the problems we face means that achieving a holistic view of the business has arguably never been more important. A tweak to remuneration policy, a switch to subscription pricing, the onboarding of a new supply chain partner or business arm; these and countless other decisions can have ripples across the business that are not always self-evident. xP&A is an approach that may deliver the true visibility organisations demand in order to link cause and effect, along with the ability to navigate uncertainty and respond with agility.

It was the global technological research specialist, Gartner, that first started using the term, extended planning and analysis around 2021. It defined it as “a transformation of financial planning and analysis via a single platform with the integration and services needed for finance and business teams to collaborate.” Through its ‘Market Guide for Cloud, Extended Planning and Analysis,’ (xP&A) Gartner also signposts the handful of solutions with the capabilities to help deliver this transformation, CCH Tagetik among them.     

That said, xP&A is not something that enterprises can simply install, switch on and start using. It is an approach rather than a product. Certain advanced capabilities (predictive analytics being a notable example) play a central role; but as always, technology is an enabler rather than an end goal. To successfully pivot towards xP&A, organisations need to examine, and – where necessary – adapt their planning culture. 

In embarking upon that transformation, these are the areas finance leaders should focus on:

1. Blending xP&A into your wider finance transformation strategy 

There is a defined broad business case for xP&A; namely, the opportunity to break down planning silos, to gain a holistic view of the organisation and to foster organisational agility and informed decision making, with a stronger handle on cause and effect. 

But more specifically, what about the finance case for it? That phrase, ‘finance transformation’ is, by now, ubiquitous. It involves an element of soul searching (asking what the finance function is for, and how it can deliver real value to the organisation in the long-term). On a more practical level for most companies, it usually involves adopting various technologies to streamline or completely automate key processes and workflows. 

The pandemic and subsequent shocks led some 69% of businesses to step up their transformation efforts. Despite (or perhaps, because of) more recent economic shocks, this transformation has continued apace. In its 2022 Tax and Finance Operations Survey, EY found that 84% of organisations are actively transforming their tax and finance operating model. Additionally, 94% are reallocating their budget away from routine activities (tax compliance, for example), and towards more strategic ones, including policy, planning and controversy management. 

In the current climate, however, there is no such thing as a blank cheque to cover transformation. If xP&A adoption is to be added to the transformation ‘to do’ list, finance leaders need to carefully consider the case for it. This will, of course, be dependent on a business’ specific goals and priorities. 

As part of this, alongside the broad business case for it, one key potential benefit of xP&A is the fact that it goes hand-in-hand with business partnering. This is (or ought to be) a key aim of any finance transformation strategy; the idea that rather than just issuing reports from on high, finance should be actively putting its expertise to use in solving wider business problems. Analysis, risk management, governance, a fresh perspective: true business partnering requires these core finance competencies to be deployed, where needed, at ground level. Above all, it is collaborative. 

xP&A provides the ideal framework for this business partnering to occur. Using the same familiar platform they use for topline strategic plans, finance professionals can seamlessly drill into the detail of operational plans from various departments, offer suggestions for change and help generate solutions to operational problems.              

2. Secure buy-in from stakeholders at an early stage 

Any shift towards xP&A will only be successful if individuals within the business understand and buy into the approach. 

Finance leaders should consider highlighting to team members the potential benefits of xP&A in terms of personal and professional development. Namely, the fact that this approach actively encourages finance professionals to drill into the detail of operational plans and data; to gain a clearer understanding of what makes the business tick and to expand their knowledge base through closer cross-functional collaboration. 

In its most recent ‘Skills Advantage Report,’ LinkedIn highlighted the workplace factors that are most likely to prevent the churn of in-demand, talented employees. Top of the list came scope for real career advancement, along with reassurance that what they do day-to-day adds real value to the business. By adopting xP&A and encouraging wide uptake, finance leaders can speak directly to these ambitions. In other words, more integrated planning is good for business, and good for people, too, which should bode well for shifting a company’s culture towards it. 

No single department should have a monopoly on planning. Likewise, xP&A adoption and usage should not be confined to finance. The benefits of it should be made clear to all internal stakeholders involved in planning, decision making and performance activities.

Wolters Kluwer asked business leaders to highlight those operational areas that would most benefit from integration with financial planning.

For all business divisions, xP&A has the potential to speed up the planning and decision-making process. It also helps provide crucial insight both on how operational decisions impact the wider business, and on how strategic goals should be translated into operational plans. 

4. Data and technology considerations 

On the data side, Mark Jenkins, chief finance officer at HR, payroll and finance software company MHR International, highlights the need to ensure that source data is clean and accurate in order to realise the maximum benefit from xP&A: “Companies also have to make sure the manual systems and business processes are robust enough to feed data into the system, or they are going to elicit bad decisions based on poor data.” 

Jenkins has worked on implementing xP&A in many companies, and also warns of the need to resource the transition properly. “You could end up with a hybrid xP&A that is a little bit on the system and a little bit off it,” he says. “And then stakeholders complain that it isn’t giving them the benefits they expected. That might be because the management wanted it implemented in three months but they only seconded two staff to the project when it needed eight staff across all the departments.” 

Finance leaders with recent experience of software procurement will be aware that terms like ‘AI-driven’ and ‘smart’ are used liberally by vendors. When considering technology solutions to support an xP&A transformation, such claims are always worth interrogating closely by asking three key questions: 

• Regardless of any labels used, what actual functionality does this solution offer? 

• What difference will this functionality make to everyday users? 

• How exactly will it equip us to get a holistic view of the business, to generate more accurate plans and to respond with agility to unpredictable events with uncertain outcomes? 

Despite the proliferation of feature-rich performance management products on the market, only a small handful have been assessed as meeting the full criteria of an xP&A leader. One such is CCH Tagetik. This platform’s multiple features and innovations are squared firmly on four simple business aims:

• It enables companies to account for the obvious by automating and streamlining core financial processes, including financial close, disclosure management and a host of regulatory requirements. 

• Businesses can plan for the probable, with financial, strategic and operational plans fully integrated in a user-friendly analytical information hub. 

• It allows an organisation to strategise for the possible through extended plans in a robust governance framework supported by a powerful workflow engine. 

• Companies can plan for the unknown, supported by out-of-the-box machine learning algorithms. In real life, this means employees can test assumptions, play with ideas and take risks in a safe environment, using both internal and external data. Alter any variable, and they can instantly measure the impact across the enterprise, at any level of granularity.  

Once finance leaders have established the business case for xP&A and where it sits in their wider finance transformation strategy, the right technology then acts as a gateway to successful implementation. It can provide precisely the right environment where collaboration and business-partnering become second nature, along with proactively creating responses to whatever challenges and opportunities the business may be faced with.     

Ask several executives within a business to tell you where resources should be best allocated, and you are likely to get several different answers. Likewise, when the next major challenge or opportunity arrives, you can expect a range of opinions on how best to respond. 

All of this is normal and healthy. Individual stakeholders will each have their own subject matter expertise, perspectives and opinions. If they are all represented at the table, this makes for better quality decision-making.

There can, however, be a downside to multiple perspectives; especially if those responsible for department-specific planning are relying solely on their own data and planning methods. Their operational decisions may make perfect sense from a departmental point of view, but fail to account for consequences in other areas. This narrowness of perspective applies to the finance function, too. There is a danger of finance imposing targets or allocating resources to business units without any real analysis of the operational impact of such allocations on those units and the knock-on effects elsewhere. 

By creating clear information pathways between operations and finance, xP&A can help you address this problem. Here’s a closer look at how the xP&A approach creates that all-important holistic view of the business, the difference this makes to decision-makers on the ground, and the benefits it can offer to the business. 

Before and after: what difference does xP&A technology make? 

To illustrate the difference xP&A can make to planning outcomes, here’s an opportunity scenario encountered by a wealth management firm. In this hypothetical scenario, the UK government has just introduced new time-limited rules designed to facilitate easier overseas investment in UK companies. This raises the possibility of launching several new types of fund products. However, the temporary nature of the rule change means there is a very small window to take advantage of it.

This opportunity is on the radar of several departments within the business: principally, product development, client services, backroom operations, as well as the firm’s corporate finance team.

Before xP&A

Under the traditional approach to planning, these departments approach this opportunity in the context of their department-specific planning processes, based on their own data. The product development team has produced a plan which draws largely on data commissioned internally from the legal and risk management offices, as well as external auditors’ data. This team is ‘all in’ on the option of launching several new products. Client services is closely aligned with the sales team through a CRM system, and these two functions have put forward a joint plan for roll-out. 

So far as certain other operational departments are concerned, the situation is less clear. IT will need to adapt certain existing platforms to accommodate the new products. However, this will mean either diverting resources from existing projects or recruiting new specialist employees. It is a similar story for product management and investment operations. 

So, where does this leave the finance team and those stakeholders with the final say on the decision? Finance has been able to incorporate data from sales and product development into a projection which suggests a prima facie strong case in favour of the product launch. However, several other backroom operations run very opaque planning processes. Meaningful data from these processes is nigh on impossible to incorporate into FP&A analysis. The opportunity seems too good to miss, but in reality, stakeholders know they are going in blind, without a comprehensive assessment of what the tradeoffs might be for other business activities.

After xP&A

A solution such as CCH Tagetik provides for all planning activities on a single platform and holds the data for those processes on the platform itself. On the ground, this means that planners continue to bring their unique perspectives to the table, but they are no longer blinkered by department-specific data sets. This is illustrated if we take the same example of a wealth management firm’s potential new product range, but in the context of xP&A. 

Previously, the product development department’s feasibility plan drew largely on legal and risk data. Now, planners within that department can instantly drill directly into IT, product management and a host of other categories of operational data. The concept of ‘feasibility’ is widened considerably, which means certain categories of products can be ruled out at an early stage. 

Next, there needs to be more granular consideration of the products left on the table. Especially when it is supported by powerful predictive analytics capabilities, xP&A actively promotes a collaborative approach to this. Participants can see for themselves how different subcategories of the product require different levels of operational support. All planners can experiment with the drivers collaboratively, alter specifications in a sandbox, instantly gauge the likely tradeoffs in other parts of the business, and, where necessary, identify the best options for reallocating resources. Everyone has access to the same data for this, with no business blindspots.

Final decision-makers can thereby be presented with a range of options, along with a much clearer depiction of the organisation-wide outcomes of each one. 

Finance agility and clarity of purpose 

When grappling with traditional planning architectures, doing nothing can sometimes appear to be the safest option. Without knowing if we are triggering some unforeseen consequence elsewhere in the business, it may seem better to wait until an operational manager finally produces the information you have been promised, or until the markets have settled down. 

However, the hypothetical example detailed above was framed deliberately as a time-limited one for a reason. There will be situations when decision-makers do not have the luxury of being able to wait. The experience of recent years and months may indicate that those situations are becoming a lot more common. 

Those three key elements of best-in-class xP&A technology: a single platform for planning, all data in the same place, and advanced analytical capabilities, mean that decision-makers are in a position to respond in a timely manner to previously unpredicted events, analyse outcomes and take action. In other words, they can act quickly and with confidence: the hallmarks of organisational agility. 

Visibility across operations increases resilience 

Alongside the non-linear nature of business challenges, another concept that has gained traction over recent years is the concept of organisational “brittleness”. This is the idea of illusionary strength, where operating models or structures appear solid right up to the moment they fail. 

The absence of pathways between operational departments, and between finance and operations in the round, can increase the chances of this brittleness occurring. For instance, based exclusively on its own data, internal KPIs and reference points, a divisional sales team’s performance may appear strong. However, this disguises problems below the surface, such as over-reliance on too few customers, or on a supply chain partner which happens to be under threat of failure. 

xP&A can place planners in a much stronger position to actively check for and address those faultlines. For instance, with established pathways between operations and finance, you can see that a supply chain partner is defaulting on SLAs in one area of the business, which might not bode well for other areas where that partner is used. This can give you insight into where and how to shore up the business. This type of proactive approach is extremely valuable for both mitigating operational risk, as well as for building organisational resilience. 

Accurate, meaningful disclosures in an ESG world 

An estimated 88% of publicly traded companies and almost a fifth of smaller businesses are already using ESG frameworks to measure and report on organisational performance. In most cases (for the time being, at least), companies who adopt ESG metrics do so not out of any absolute legal obligation, but because it is what customers, investors and other key stakeholders demand from them. 

From a reputational point of view, perhaps the only thing worse than ignoring ESG is going about it in a haphazard or superficial way. For example, a company publishes its targets for waste reduction, but is unable to produce any concrete evidence on how this will impact operational plans. Or it claims to have reduced fossil fuel usage by 50%, but has failed to account for usage under the control of a supply chain partner (principally, because it does not have visibility on this information). 

The xP&A approach to planning can and should go hand-in-hand with a successful ESG initiative. It becomes possible to link strategic aims directly to operational plans, enabling organisations to demonstrate not just what they want to achieve, but precisely how they are going to achieve it. 

CCH Tagetik is hardwired to enable organisations’ journey to compliance in this area. Available through the platform, CCH Tagetik ESG & Sustainability Performance Management provides the means to meet your evolving reporting requirements with ease. Centralising financial, operational and ESG data, the solution enables you to create the disclosures you need with confidence, analyse your performance and play out ESG scenarios to test their real-world impacts.

Greater insight starts here 

What if supplier price inflation peaks at 15%? What if borrowing costs were to be hiked by a further percentage point? What if we were to become carbon neutral by 2028, not 2030? 

With information pathways in place across all areas of your business and with powerful predictive analytics capabilities at your fingertips, it is possible to build multiple versions of plans and forecasts quickly and accurately assess their likely impact across the entire business. A solution such as CCH Tagetik does not seek to diminish the importance of planning perspectives from individual departments. In fact, far from it. The solution actively addresses the need for collaboration, but depicts the outcomes of plans – whether they were generated in finance or elsewhere – with more clarity than ever.

If a particular driver is relevant to an organisation’s planning, it needs to be incorporated within those planning processes. Failure to do so risks drawing conclusions and making decisions that do not fully reflect reality. 

Logical though it may be in theory, this principle is not always easy to follow in practice. This is especially true when those drivers originate at arm’s length from the organisation itself, including the wider supply chain.

The events of the last few years have highlighted just how diverse and scattered those drivers can be. Lending rate and FX movement, supplier outages or bottlenecks, changes in buyer behaviour and sales demand: these and countless other variables highlight the fact that no element of the chain exists in isolation. Changes to what may seem a fairly peripheral element can have severe and often hard-to-predict consequences for the business.

Wolters Kluwer recently hosted an expert-led webinar on supply chain best practice, at which participants were invited to assess the extent to which their supply chain was integrated into their finance planning. Ten percent of respondents had achieved full integration status, while 52% had partial integration. For 38% of organisations, ‘supply chain planning’ and ‘finance planning’ were completely disconnected. 

There is nothing new about attempting to achieve formalised integration between supply chain planning and finance. It seems, however, that legacy processes and technologies are failing short in this aim.   

A key way of understanding xP&A is the evolution of planning beyond the finance function. This evolution does not have to be limited to just a handful of proximal business activities. Rather, the approach can and should be extended to all elements of the supply chain.

Here’s a closer look at how xP&A can deliver visibility and insight on all moving parts of the business.

Out of sight, out of mind? Positioning the supply chain on the finance radar 

Events within the wider supply chain can have direct repercussions for business continuity, liquidity, reputation (e.g. the ability to deliver on service level agreements), and in some cases, can pose an existential threat to the entire organisation. This much should be self-evident to any corporate finance professional. But in terms of real or near-time visibility, the wider elements of the chain can often remain out of view from finance. 

James McEntee, UK MD of CCH Tagetik points out the risks inherent in having these blindspots: “Supply chain issues historically haven’t been seen as finance issues. But supply chain problems very quickly become cash flow problems, and land on the CFO’s desk. Forewarned is forearmed. The office of finance can become a true business partner to demand and supply chain planning teams, ensuring clearer lines of sight and better-informed decisions right across the business.”

There can sometimes be a tendency to ‘talk the talk’ on integrating supply chain data into finance planning and decision making. However, the way in which a company’s operational network is organised can pose a barrier to achieving this. Under long-established structures, there may be a web of discrete systems that pass on fairly minimal data from one element to the next. Ultimately, some of this aggregated data may find its way to finance to be incorporated into the FP&A process. However, what this essentially comprises is topline information, i.e. static data that tells you in the broadest possible terms what happened yesterday or last quarter.  

If true end-to-end visibility and integrated planning is to be achieved, a change of mindset may be needed. In other words, a realisation that the supply chain – including its operational elements – are very much finance’s business. Clearer, more comprehensive lines of sight need to be a top priority.

Existing supply chain planning processes and technologies: What’s missing here? 

Very young organisations aside, supply chains are rarely shaped by deliberate design. They morph and are subject to tweaks over time as business objectives and priorities evolve. If finance leaders want a truly integrated view of the business, the first step is to get into the weeds, to understand what discrete data repositories and systems are currently involved, what data they produce and how the systems speak to each other.  

No supply chain can operate unless its various elements can communicate with each other and are somehow aligned to the overall business strategy. Over recent decades, the standard way of achieving this is through the business process known as integrated business planning (IBP). If a finance professional only has passing knowledge of IBP methodologies, this is entirely understandable: this is very much an operations-led approach, where the number one priority is usually predicting and meeting demand. 

However, delve a little deeper into existing IBP processes and the technologies that support them, and there may be certain reporting and even analytical capabilities within a business. Indeed, the consolidation of whatever supply chain data currently integrated into existing FP&A processes may be reliant on this functionality. 

This poses a question: if finance wants to achieve greater visibility across the supply chain, then why not simply make greater use of existing IBP solution features? 

Part of the answer relates to solution design and intent. Traditional IBP’s main goal is to ensure that supply of your product or service offering meets demand. Certainly, this approach to planning takes into account broad business objectives; but those objectives are usually ones that originate outside of finance (sales and marketing targets, for instance). 

By contrast, the xP&A approach has a subtly different intent. It is designed to ensure that operational processes are fully aligned with the organisation’s financial performance. 

Take the example of an insurance provider. The company’s legacy IBP process highlights an upcoming spike in demand for a particular product, based on data from an outsourced customer response hub. Based on this analysis, a possible course of action would be to reallocate resources to accommodate this demand. 

However, a more holistic analysis under the xP&A approach gives a different picture. The impact of a resource reallocation will have a negative impact on areas such as HR and IT support that has not been factored in under the IBP analysis. An impact/benefit analysis taking into account all relevant plans across the business suggests that resources would be more profitably deployed in other areas.

What will happen? Reading the supply chain warning signs through xP&A 

Being able to see the whole picture is obviously crucial for effective end-to-end planning. But creating true agility – the ability to respond rapidly to unpredicted and uncertain events – requires several further steps. 

Discrete, operation-specific software already in play across your organisation may have analysis capabilities. Typically however, these are of the ‘descriptive’ type: the solution can tell you what happened, where, and why. 

But true risk mitigation across the chain also requires companies to ask: ‘What will – or might – happen?’ thereby allowing for the amending or removal of any weak links at an early stage. This is the essence of predictive analysis; something that is crucial for mitigating supply chain risk. 

Wolters Kluwer’s recent acquisition of Vanguard Software and its subsequent integration into the CCH Tagetik platform has given it a leading edge in this area; a major factor in the solution earning market leader status. Using industry-leading Machine Learning capabilities to ‘train’ predictive models, users can continuously update plans and generate increasingly accurate forecasts and predictions. If an event occurs or a driver alters, this gives you the ability to measure its likely implications, right across the business. Furthermore, through sandboxed ‘what if’ analysis, you have all the tools you need for formulating a response.

Where to next? 

The robust approach to planning that xP&A gives you the potential to understand not just what is happening across the business units, but beyond the business walls. The presence of world-class technology in support of your initiative makes it easier than ever for external partners (e.g. logistics and technical support) to share their data, helping to generate evermore accurate forecasts and predictions. The end result is that all relevant drivers are in the planning and decision-making mix.