Strategic Financial Management with SAP Finance Management Software

Provide management with timely and meaningful data analysis and key figures to ensure strategic decision making.

Increase transparency to evaluate business risks in greater detail – to ensure full compliance with standards and regulations.

Consolidate financial data in one place to keep track of your budget and make better business decisions.

Coined by Gartner in 2020, the term xP&A describes the extension of the best financial planning and analytics (FP&A) concepts to areas of the business other than finance, including supply chain management, marketing, human resources, sales and information technology. The goal is to break up silos and instead enable synchronised collaboration across the entire enterprise.

Gartner predicts that by 2024, 70 % of new FP&A projects will then be xP&A projects instead – extending in scope as well as business areas involved. For this expansion of FP&A capabilities to work in the future, the relevant processes must already be established and well-run today. This emphasises the great importance and influence of the finance department for business success of tomorrow.

Extended planning and analysis offer organisations 5 key benefits:

1. Visibility across the entire business – in real time: Breaking up silos helps enterprises create a single view of plans and performance. In addition to other reporting and analysis tools, this view will enable CEOs to understand the impact of decisions on the entire organisation or each department individually.
2. Consistent information for decision-making: When important data is scattered in several places within the IT infrastructure of a company, chances are that decision-making is difficult due to conflicting versions of the truth. A single source of truth enables planners to work with consistent information.
3. Synchronised business: By sharing platform and methodology, xP&A encourages collaboration by emphasising the impact one department’s work has on another. Whether it’s strategic, financial, or operational plans – through synchronisation, the whole enterprise is in line and works toward a common goal.
4. Increased agility: With xP&A, business leaders are fully equipped to identify new opportunities, navigate risks and maximise efficiency on the fly – because their data-based insights let them understand what’s happening in their business and the world around it within seconds.
5. Automated planning: xP&A makes it easy to continuously update business plans based on current events and unsteady conditions. When a modification has to be made to one plan, all associated plans are automatically updated. This minimises errors due to manual transmission of data and keeps insights up to date, even in turbulent times.