Prophix attends the Innovation Enterprise Financial Forecasting and Planning Summit

It’s was a great couple of days at the IE #FPALondon Financial Forecasting and Planning Summit in London, UK.  There were over 150 delegates in attendance with two different speaking tracks – one for financial leaders and a second for logistics and supply chain professionals. Prophix sponsored the event and had representatives from our Prophix UK team, including Daniel Mason and myself, as well as our CEO Paul Barber from Toronto. The delegates included CFOs, Controllers and FP&A heads who attended seminars lead by some inspiring and innovative speakers from organizations such as Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Unilever, Heinz, Skyscanner and Vodaphone.  The seminars were delivered by finance leaders who spoke about their planning models and methods, and some of their own best practices.  Finance professionals from around the UK came out to hear how these thought leaders managed their budgeting and forecasting. Some of the key takeaways from the event:

• The Finance leader from Heinz spoke about how to effectively implement zero-based budgeting. He explained that this was not an easy task, nor is it for the faint at heart as it can be a rigorous and tiring process but overall can be very effective at cutting cost across an organization
• The Financial Controller from Skyscanner explained how the relationship between Finance and Corporate Performance Management (CPM) or Business Intelligence (BI) is essential to move rich data for quick decision making.  The emphasis of his message was that the ultimate ownership of FP&A should remain with the Finance team rather than the BI team to keep the Finance team motivated and become more impactful on the strategic direction of the business.
• Delegates heard about how to effectively plan for considerable growth using driver-based modelling and top down budgeting.  It was clear that having a CPM tool was a great asset – both in getting the job done and in attracting the best forecasting and planning candidates.

Overall the event was very successful and we spoke with many organizations that see the value in having a CPM tool such as Prophix for their financial planning and analysis.  This was a great opportunity to increase awareness of the Prophix brand in the UK finance world.