Today’s changing market conditions require agile company strategies that can help their teams shift their goals as needed. This is where the concept of Connected Planning comes into play.
So what is connected planning?
Connected planning integrates business processes throughout the organization. It improves value to the business by getting rid of information silos and minimizing errors, which accelerates how information is shared across the wider team.
And in a time where many organizations are constantly confronted with cross-enterprise collaboration or have to deal with the difficult task of having their people work on data for different strategies using separate spreadsheets, this is a welcome change.
Using Connected Planning, you may facilitate collaboration, get insights, and develop predictive, self-learning skills that will help you make more informed strategic decisions.
On a Connected Planning platform like Performance Canvas, processes, people, and data are all inextricably connected. The more connections you make with Connected Planning, the higher the value you receive.
Connected planning makes it easy to observe the impact of changes to plans across all affected business units in real-time as they are implemented. As a result, critical choices may be made swiftly and with complete awareness of the implications for the company.
This also draws attention to the tension between flexibility and complexity. Spreadsheets establish data silos that are infinitely adaptable inside a single worksheet because of their flexibility. Nevertheless, because spreadsheets are not designed to deal with complexity efficiently, they are susceptible to mistakes and difficult to decipher when issues are asked.
How Connected Planning Helps Organizations
Sharing spreadsheets and collaborating on them is not ideal because changes can get lost along the way. Spreadsheets also get locked when someone else is making changes.
It is hard to keep track of alterations, but it can be challenging to cross-check data for inconsistencies. Therefore, going through multiple stages of approvals when using spreadsheets is a disaster waiting to unfold.
Spreadsheets are designed with a single user in mind, so organizations run into problems when using them for budget planning or forecasting. It would help if you had an advanced FP&A software like Performance Canvas that is well-suited for multiple users while ensuring your data trail is easily accessible and transparent for anyone across the organization.
Spreadsheet-based planning procedures are significantly more time-consuming and labor-intensive to administer.
Connected planning provides teams with the best of both worlds by maintaining sophisticated models that can be stretched in real-time by concurrent users to reflect changes in your company’s operating environment.
Connected planning evolves in tandem with you and your company, enabling leaders in your organization to make difficult decisions swiftly and confidently under pressure. Every member in your organization should have the ability to plan so that the most potent individuals may utilize the finest available data to make better-informed decisions than those less powerful.
When Connected Planning is implemented in your organization, you can use the integrated power of people and planning technology to make the most of the natural connections that already exist inside your organization.
Connected Planning Using Performance Canvas Financials
With the right software solution, CFOs can make financial planning less stressful overall for their teams and the overall organization.
Performance Canvas Financials is an entirely integrated performance management solution that provides financial reporting, planning, and consolidation capabilities. With infinite what-if modeling, budget roll-up reports, and driver-based reporting, it has it all.
Learn more about why PCF is the right solution to help you jumpstart connected planning for your organization.
Contact our team for a free PCF demo today.
