An Active Planning process is a living and breathing planning process. It embodies the ability to bring an organization together to plan and execute as one. Many companies I deal with employ a ‘Static Planning’ process, which I often call ‘Set-and-forget planning’.
Static planning is characterized by long planning cycles, siloed contributions, and limited strategic analysis. Often, towards the end of the planning cycle, the focus often becomes one of simply completing the plan, with the final output printed on paper.
Active Planning leverages technology to create a process that is collaborative, comprehensive, and continuous. Making everyone better prepared for every business opportunity.
Active Planning Is Collaborative, Comprehensive, and Continuous
Improved Collaboration
By leveraging technology, using a single source of shared data accessible to the entire team, updated for all users with actual and plan changes in real time, collaborative financial planning empowers all stakeholders to easily engage with the numbers.
A Comprehensive View of the Business
Modeling and forecasting that spans the entire business and understands its complexities and nuances. Allowing for new insights to be unlocked with detailed and sophisticated analysis.
Faster Forecasting and Analysis for Continuous Planning
Active planning automates data collection to ensure you’re always working with fresh data. This allows you to spend more time on analysis, delivering deeper insights and becoming a better business partner to the entire company.
Be Better Prepared for Every Business Opportunity
Better Visibility
An active planning process provides the transparency necessary for collaborative budgeting and agile financial forecasting. A full audit trail makes it quick and easy to view when and where changes are being made to data, and who is responsible for making the change.
Actionable Insights
Active Planning creates a culture where decision making is driven by data. Self-service reports and dashboards make it easy for finance and even other departments to create and communicate analytics that is constantly updated with live data. Visualizations allow consumers to easily understand the story within the data without getting lost in rows of numbers. Active Planning empowers people across the company to present and share financial and operational metrics.
Better Responsiveness
Active planning allows for continuous planning. No matter how much data you add to the process, allowing you to respond faster to a changing marketplace.
Increased Confidence
With a single source of truth based on comprehensive, fresh data, you know you are always working with the most up to date version of the information. With everyone working with the same numbers there will be fewer discrepancies.
Active Planning allows operational and financial forecasting without compromise.
