12 Best Practices in Financial Planning & Analysis

Most CFOs are not happy with their Financial Planning and Analysis process, believing it delivers too little value and eats up too many resources.

To date, the answers have been based on conventional wisdom, anecdotes, and popular trends propagated by finance magazines. What’s been lacking is hard data… until now. The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and I developed a survey that more than 700 organizations around the globe participated in. What made this survey different was the approach it took. Previous research focused on a particular methodology, then worked backward to find success stories. The IMA survey instead focused on what the most successful organizations are doing differently from everyone else when it comes to FP&A. These successful organizations consistently meet or exceed their targets, and they consistently meet or beat their competition. Hard to think of a single CEO who wouldn’t crave those results (which, by the way, guarantee their bonus).

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