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What is xP&A?

QueBIT’s typical client is a Vice-President of Finance, CFO, or an operational executive - say an Inventory manager or Vice-President of Supply Chain. Our typical conversation with them involves an aspect of digital transformation in their planning, analysis or reporting processes; and how technology may help them increase business agility, improve forecast accuracy, speed up planning cycles and make better data-driven business decisions.

In October 2020, a new user experience (UX) was unveiled for IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW), which we wrote about here. In this article we will share QueBIT’s release recommendations for new PAW. 

Data is the fuel of all analytics, whether you want to provide accurate timely information to decision-makers on the front lines, provide a comprehensive customer dashboard to your executives, do a predictive demand forecast or simply complete your annual budget.

You’ve been seeing people push AI and Machine Learning (ML) at you for years. Just about every magazine, research report, and unsolicited email you received in 2020 had an AI or ML angle. Maybe your organization has even talked about how ML can help solve your problems. But chances are, you haven’t implemented it. Most companies haven’t. But why is that? And why should you take the leap now?

With the October 2020 release of IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) 2.0.57, IBM is boldly starting a brand-new chapter for Planning Analytics (TM1) leveraging their open source Carbon design system for products and digital experiences. Going forward, all IBM software products will share the Carbon look and feel.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies are offering new levels of automation and intelligence in the Office of Finance. These technologies are underpinning many digital transformation efforts in finance and accounting. For RPA, which is all about eliminating tedious repetitive manual tasks, most growth has come from shared services centers implementing RPA solutions to support transaction processing, such as:

The Office of Finance is increasingly moving away from traditional, score-keeping focused frameworks like CPM and embracing cross-functional planning that is collaborative and strategic.

About 20 years ago my mentor and former boss, Richard Creeth, was introduced to a new company called OutlookSoft that had developed a corporate performance management (CPM) product called Everest on top of Microsoft SQL Server and Analysis Services. Richard was well-known back then as an industry analyst and co-author of the OLAP Report and up-and-coming vendors were eager to court his good opinion. Richard was also the principal of a boutique consulting firm that specialized in financial reporting, consolidations and planning which QueBIT acquired in 2008.

Once upon a time Oracle’s Hyperion EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) solution, built on the Essbase platform, was the market leader for everything “FP&A” (Financial Planning & Analysis) from the annual budget to the rolling forecast, profitability analysis and everything in-between.