CFC2008. Announcements and Introduction | Making Financial Planning Fit for Pandemic Times

The current pandemic spotlights why traditional budgeting practices often fail in fast changing environments. Management teams need a more comprehensive approach to making their financial planning fit for these pandemic times we live in. This fast-paced session will show you what many firms are doing to create agile planning functions better equipped to handle the pace of today’s world.

This session will briefly explain why budgeting as a process often impedes progress, and provides more agile alternatives to achieving management’s objectives, including the following:

• Rolling forecasts
• Target setting and detailed planning based on ‘separate and improve’
• Scenario planning to effectively mitigate risks
• Effective financial planning and analysis techniques

Learning Objectives:

• Examine the purposes of budgeting and how to streamline the planning using “separate and improve”.
• Shift to more effective target setting to eliminate gaming and sandbagging.
• Use driver-based rolling forecasts to maintain visibility
• Determine how to shift the focus to identifying and closing gaps
• Develop scenario planning to become more agile.