Agility is a key requirement for businesses today as they adapt to a constantly evolving work environment. Good preparation lies in expert planning. Andreas Simon, Regional Director MEA at Jedox, talks to us about how Integrated Business Planning can help businesses prepare for unforeseen circumstances.
Whenever an economy undergoes a recovery, the mentality of ‘never again’ often kicks in. Organisations that navigated challenging market conditions emerge with a newfound sense of urgency to address how they can make their operations more resilient, so the next crisis that may arise feels more like a ripple than a wave. In this journey to increase resilience, competitive businesses frequently look to cutting-edge technology for guidance. This often means having very frank conversations about the kind of business planning that will allow an enterprise to navigate the region’s rapidly evolving trends. The limited analytics capabilities of spreadsheets and siloed, manual data collation is quickly being rendered obsolete by extant realities.
The approach to traditional business planning, commonly used until recent years, is being replaced by a new method that allows firms to understand their entire business at a glance and take meaningful action to enhance operational efficiency. Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a cross-functional methodology that brings together traditionally separate business units so they can strategise as one for more effective and efficient business performance that supports increased operational resilience.
Instead of finance, HR and other business units operating in almost total isolation with private KPIs and metrics that enhance only their operations, IBP helps tear down silos and opens up a wider range of opportunities for better business performance. Integrated planning is continuous and collaborative, enabling action that is impactful across the entire enterprise.
When starting a Digital Transformation journey to improve organisational resilience, it is important to have a clear view of the road ahead. The following three recommendations will help the region’s innovators ensure that clarity.
1. Define needs vs. wants
While stakeholders may have positive feelings about Digital Transformation, many programmes end up failing because they did not ask the simple question of ‘what do we need?’ When in pursuit of improving resilience, it does not serve decision-makers to immediately consider technology before understanding the needs that it will address. Once a clear view of the organisation’s goals and ambitions is established, the next step should be separating the ‘must-haves’ from those that might be ‘nice to have.’
When weighing these needs, it is also important to consider ease-of-use side by side with scalability. Just because an integrated-planning tool can deliver a mountain of functionality does not mean it is also capable of meeting the long-term needs of a business. By always keeping operational goals in mind, it will be much easier to steadily progress along the Digital Transformation journey and see tangible ROI along the way.
While spreadsheet-based planning is no longer viable given the velocity of modern markets, technology stakeholders cannot expect the finance function to transition without some degree of resistance. In delivering Integrated Business Planning, it will be important to respect this and consider whether the finance team can take charge of the budget for a procured tool as well as being business users of it. Project managers of the transition will need to strike a balance between the autonomy and flexibility spreadsheets bring to finance teams and the company-wide control and consistency of an integrated planning solution.
2. Win over other stakeholders
Be sure that you start your journey with finance on board. If they become ground-floor participants and partners in the process, the project will have a higher success rate than if they are, for example, brought in at the testing phase. Finance will not just be a key ally in the programme; they will bring vital knowledge and skills to the crafting of a viable solution and serve as a more effective guarantee of success. Giving finance an opportunity to collaborate with IT to set goals will help accelerate delivery and ensure goals are achieved.
This involvement will also allow Integrated Business Planning to be delivered in a series of short, rapid phases. This is important because the transition may span several months in which stakeholders can change. The shorter phase methodology not only avoids complex handovers but helps maintain stakeholder buy-in with incremental success.
3. Transform more than just business planning
Setting a new standard will take time, especially when those standards are new. A long-term vision for integrating planning requires the unification of the planning process, involving operational teams such as HR as much as finance and IT. Part of the initiative should include the Digital Transformation of other units to better serve the new standards of Integrated Business Planning.
To deliver this, a cross-functional team should be devised and assembled. Stakeholders from multiple business units come together to become solution experts so they can guide their teams and others on the road to more holistic planning. Integrated planning that delivers operational resilience has a prerequisite: uniform approaches. This can only come about through structured, phased, cross-departmental action and done properly, it will transform more than just business planning capabilities. Along the way, entire business units will also be transformed. This builds organisational competencies, accelerates project delivery, and embeds a ‘futureproof’ mindset.
Better insights and better decisions
Operational resilience can be a hard-won victory. But the very nature of Integrated Business Planning and its need for cross-disciplined teams means resilience is much closer within reach than most organisations realise. And along the way, it will unlock not only increased operational resilience but a host of benefits that enable better business performance.
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