Can Planning Analytics Help Finance Team Leverage Growth?

Can planning analytics help your finance team accelerate growth?Can planning analytics help your finance team accelerate growth?

The role of the finance team is changing in today’s competitive global markets. How your finance team adapts to these changes can mean the difference between success and failure for your midmarket organization. Planning analytics are changing the way we run our businesses.

In the past, many finance teams were record keepers and keepers of critical business information. Today, great finance teams can impact your organization’s growth and profitability in real time! They are most effective when they can share their information across their organizations!

IBM Planning Analytics can help your business grow faster and be more profitable. However, this is only the beginning of how planning analytics can increase your success in both local and global markets. Analytics provide a toolbox that allows you to see potential threats s earlier and leverage potential opportunities faster.

Applied today to your organization’s data planning, analytics can help you with collecting, cleansing, integrating, and reporting on data. In the past, these processes could eat up almost 50% of your finance team’s time to accomplish these goals. Today, planning analytics accelerates this process for key members of your finance team.

This is the first stage of maturity in analytics. Many larger organizations are just getting to this stage of using these analytics capabilities. Using planning analytics allows finance teams to do what they do best; make better decisions based on data and proven business principles.

The data is now collected and formatted so you can begin trend analysis for forecasting. The increasing amount of data requires stronger analysis, faster. Planning analytics can help your finance team manage this process more easily. Planning analytics empowers your team not only in the analysis phase, but also helping key stakeholders participate in your organization’s planning process. The more people involved in the planning process, the higher likelihood of success in building a more accurate and targeted budgeting process.

Planning analytics can help you better understand what is happening in your organization. At this stage, predictive capabilities can help you better understand what might be happening to your business. You have the ability to evaluate and change how your business is being run. This capability can help your organization not only see potential problems, but identify new opportunities in your clients and markets.

Finance teams in this environment become your trusted advisors. They are able to share and help stakeholders better understand what is happening both inside and outside the organization. Finance leaders have the ability to help key stakeholders make better decisions based on data and options.

Planning analytics can help you better anticipate trends before they happen. In the hands of strong financial analysts, your organization is better positioned to seize new opportunities and markets.

During the predictive stage of analytics, you have the ability to better manage your short term goals and objectives to achieve your corporate growth objectives. These technologies not only allow for better management of your organization. It also provides you the ability to better understand how possible scenarios impact your organization. Planning analytics allows you to better understand your clients and their customers.

This larger view of finance allows you to make better decisions on how you allocate your capital and resources across the organization. During this stage, your finance team can provide additional information to help you manage and lead your business better. Organizations who do this are better equipped to deal with change in their markets, customers, and partners.

But what is the next stage of planning analytics? I see prescriptive and cognitive analytics as the next breakthrough in advanced analytics. They change the playing field for your organization. I will cover them in our next blog. You’ll want to be here when I share how we can use advanced planning analytics to change and disrupt your marketplace forever.

Want to learn more about IBM Planning Analytics? I know we’ve covered a lot here today. I’ve got a resource to help you learn more at this page on IBM Planning Analytics. Not only can you get more information here, it also includes a software trial and white papers to better understand your options. Check it out.

I will be adding additional resources on planning analytics as they become available. I’ve done several in-depth interviews to help you decide if planning analytics is right for your organization.  Stay tuned for when I start posting those.

See you later this week!

Be the first to comment on "Can Planning Analytics Help Finance Team Leverage Growth?"

Leave a comment