Excel might just be too one-dimensional for the sophisticated organization. Face it, it's a spreadsheet not a planner. It's imperative for organizations to align strategic planning with budgeting and remake the animal to survive in a more challenging market. Making the numbers is becoming more than just making up numbers. Planning and budgeting is a value proposition. "It's one of the hardest financial processes to actually significantly change or reengineer. So the only way that you're able to do it, in most companies, is to basically blow up what you had. And by that I'm saying―opposed to looking at accounts and balances, or for example the GL, which is what is reflected in a plan―blow up that architecture," said Stephen McMinn, Partner in Accenture's Finance and Performance Management Practice. Companies should be focusing on value. Ninety percent of CFOs think their current planning and budgeting process is sub-optimal because it does not focus on shareholder value creation, according to the study "Driving Value Through Strategic Planning and Budgeting," developed by Accenture and Cranfield School of Management. Accenture's "planning for value" concept is not completely new, but has taken a great leap in the past few years because of economic "unpredictability fueled by an electronic commerce environment; volatility in capital markets affecting stocks, and the emergence of new technologies impacting almost every area in business."
展开▼
