Blog

IBM produces a great deal of information for clients and business partners to help support the ongoing use of Planning Analytics (PA). One communication tool they have is based on subscribing by product to a list of possible notifications. For example, if you are a PA administrator, you may find the general “News” notifications useful, while someone who provides IT support for the PA platform may be most interested in the “Downloads & Drivers” notifications. 

The busiest time of the year is right around the corner for many FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) professionals. Even though some organizations have moved towards continuous planning - typically rolling 12 – 18-month forecasts refreshed quarterly or even monthly – there is still a benefit to stopping and taking stock once a year.

Per Gartner, an analyst firm, a financial key performance indicator (KPI) is a leading high-level measure of revenue, expenses, profits, or other financial outcomes, simplified for gathering and review on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. This information truly projects the health of the organization, both in the short and long term. As mentioned in my earlier blog,” why finance should push for improved supply chain planning”, it is becoming important for most organizations to integrate supply chain planning and S&OP (sales & operations planning) in their financial planning and budgeting processes to have a better view of all the impactors. These financial KPIs are valuable and are used by all stakeholders to evaluate business success.

Installing IBM® Planning Analytics for Excel just got a lot simpler. The new single XLL file for using IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAfE) has cleared up a lot of installation issues by altogether eliminating the software installation package. As of PAfE 2.0.65, a single XLL file in either 32-bit or 64-Bit Excel flavors can be downloaded from IBM Fix Central or from

Partnerships are all about connecting the people and processes of multiple organizations to drive better results for the partner entities and their customers. We are pleased to announce the addition of Anaplan, the leader in “Connected Planning”, to QueBIT’s planning and analytics portfolio. 

Buoyed by the reopening of markets, many industries have witnessed an increase in their capital spending. Morgan Stanley, a leading banking firm, has predicted that investments will soar to a high of 121% of the pre-pandemic levels by the end of next year. According to Morgan Stanley, we're entering a red-hot CapEx (Capital Expenditures) cycle with firms pumping money into machines, factories, and new software.

xP&A – eXtended Planning & Analysis - a term coined in 2019 by Gartner, represents an evolution of traditional Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) towards integrated, continuous enterprise planning breaking down barriers between finance and operational functions including HR (Human Resources), Supply Chain and Sales. Companies are embracing xP&A in order to achieve strategically valuable benefits like better coordination, improved forecast accuracy, reduced cycle times and more agility. 

Until as recently as 2018, the term xP&A (eXtended Planning & Analysis) didn't exist. It was coined in 2019 by Gartner to visualize the evolution of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A). It was typical of the finance team, before 2019, to work in a silo - they alone were responsible for all the data, intelligence, and financial planning requirements of the company. But xP&A aims to extend these planning and analysis capabilities beyond the boundaries of the finance domain and into other operational areas of the enterprise such as sales, supply chain, and HR. In a way, xP&A represents the convergence of traditional FP&A with integrated business planning (IBP).

IBM Think 2021 was 100% virtual and offered for free, though certain Labs and Roundtable sessions were by-invitation only. QueBIT mostly attended free and on-demand sessions during the North American event on Tuesday May 11, 2021. There were parallel events for other regions (APAC & Japan, EMEA & India) which we did not attend.