Many companies build their commercial, operational, and financial plans in isolation, working off separate data sources. These plans are generally aligned conceptually, but not truly integrated. So promotional plans get disconnected from inventory plans. Sales and production forecasts might not line up. Strategic targets may be hit, but financial goals still not achieved.

The problem isn’t new, but there is a new way to solve it. What if you, as CFO, could combine multiple planning processes into one integrated approach—resulting in a plan all key functional leaders are committed to and measured against? And what if digital tools supporting that plan, combined with human insight, could show you in real time the impact of financial, operating, and commercial decisions? As the chief transformation officer—a role commonly assumed by heads of finance—CFOs are well positioned to make this happen. In this guide, we’ll explore how.

Planning is all about anticipating market conditions and customer preferences, recognising potential opportunities and risks, and generating insights to manage the business effectively. Done well, it provides an enterprisewide view of what needs to happen by when to achieve positive outcomes. Having a good plan is critical, but applying that plan in the real world can be deceptively difficult.

Markets continuously respond to new information, negating prior assumptions. Planners often lack visibility into performance metrics outside their functions while relying on manual processes or outmoded technology to collect, analyse, and share data. Predictive insights can take days to generate through clunky procedures—rendering them obsolete on arrival—when immediate action is needed.

Accordingly, many organisations execute slow, error-prone, and opaque planning processes—not because they don’t see the need for change, but because fixing the problem is just too big a hill to climb.