Are your planning tools fit for purpose?
No two businesses are the same. You need tools that can deliver precise functionality so you can really make your Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) work for you. That’s why flexibility is so important. If your technology stack is too rigid and structured, you can end up with the tail wagging the dog because your tools limit how you can plan.
IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 allows you complete control over your planning by giving you tremendous levels of flexibility and configurability. Leverage your custom-built system to optimise your planning workflows and, from there, you’re only limited by your imagination.
Common challenges
Rigid structures
If a planning tool is too rigid, you’re limited in what you can accomplish.
Overly simplistic
When a planning tool isn’t flexible, there’s a tendency to default to very simple models that can be handled by the tool. Unfortunately, this often results in overly simplistic planning that not only ignores the inherent complexity of a modern business, but gives you a false sense of security about the accuracy of your business plans.
Poor decision-making
Without the flexibility to build a planning system that is designed specifically for your organisation, your planning is simply not going to be as effective as it should be. Worse still, you won’t be able to dig into why mistakes took place, leaving you in the dark about where improvements can be made.
Custom-built planning workflows
Cubewise and IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 offer a flexible and customisable planning framework that adjusts to your company’s unique considerations, allowing you to configure things with precision and context built right in. It’s the best way to maximise the impact of your planning across all time horizons.
Multiple tools
When a planning system isn’t flexible enough to manage the necessary complexity, you can end up relying on multiple tools to get the job done.
Suboptimal integrations
When relying on multiple tools to achieve your planning objectives, you’re forced to build integrations that push data from one tool to another. This creates room for error and can lead to suboptimal results, especially if the tools aren’t designed to be used together.
Incomplete data
When your integrations are imperfect, you can end up with an incomplete data set that doesn’t reflect the true reality of your business. When divisions or teams don’t have access to the full context, decisions can be made from a specific (and incorrect) perspective.
A single source of truth
Cubewise and IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 offer a highly flexible planning system that can be adjusted to your requirements, eliminating the need for other tools. Everything can be done in one place, ensuring you always have the complete picture and can make informed and holistic decisions.
Infrequent planning
When your planning tools aren’t flexible, planning is disincentivised and becomes more infrequent.
Expensive to run
When your planning system isn’t flexible to changing circumstances it becomes expensive and time-consuming to run a planning exercise. This increases the opportunity cost of this process, leading to fewer planning processes being undertaken over the course of any given year.
Planning becomes outdated
Without regular adjustment and adaptation, your plans can become outdated, lose their relevance and impact your decisions negatively. Planning should go through a constant journey of refinement, but that simply doesn’t happen if the system isn’t agile enough to handle changes in circumstances along the way.
Iterative, unified planning
Cubewise and IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 offer the sort of flexible planning that makes it easier than ever to adjust and adapt your forecasts. This lowers the effort required and incentivises constant refinement. The result? Your plans are kept up-to-date and your decision-making is that much easier to get right.
Transformative flexible planning
Your planning tools should morph to suit you, rather than the other way around. IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 allows this flexibility. It’s a powerful and sophisticated set of tools that can be configured in a near-infinite number of ways so you can craft the perfect planning system for your business.
It’s time to take your planning to the next level so you can march into the future with as much high-quality information as you can. Get started today!
Talk to us today and let’s overcome the challenge together.
When a system is unable to adapt to changing business circumstances, it can be tremendously frustrating for all who work with it. Things must go on, of course, and so users will resort to building tedious workarounds, simplifications and shortcuts that only serve to kick the can down the road.
Don’t accept that your business processes are incapable of adapting to fast-moving market changes. Contact us to find out how easy it can be to implement efficient and practical planning, reporting and forecasting workflows.
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