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Confessions of an FP&A-holic: 7 Lessons I Wish I Knew Earlier
Hi everyone! My name is Anna, and I am an FP&A-holic.
Yes, I said that, I am addicted to financial planning and analysis.
I am excited when all the checks in my financial models are colored green, and I get thrilled out of digging into data and finding insights that lead to better business decisions.
After 15+ years in FP&A, I’ve learned some hard truths — things I wish someone had told me earlier in my career. Whether you're just starting out or are a seasoned FP&A pro, I hope these insights will help you stand out and thrive in this evolving field.
FP&A is a Swiss multi-tool in a pocket of a management team
With constantly evolving role of the finance function in the organization, these are FP&A practitioners who feel the most pressure to be jack-of-all-trades. Growing variety and complexity of tasks force them to develop skills, both hard and soft, to keep up with all requirements and expectations.
There is a specific product on the market I could associate FP&A with, and this is a Swiss multi-tool.
So, if FP&A were a Swiss multi-tool, how could we sell it?
How to put finance business partnering puzzle together?
Finance business partnering is not a new concept and has been around for a while. Well, not just for a while, for more than 60 years. Since then, finance community could not come up with one single definition of finance business partnering. It’s still unclear whether it’s a job title, or a role, or the way of working, etc.
Indeed, the concept is not the easiest one to define, but its benefits for the companies are intuitively obvious and well known.