Starting a small business is the ultimate working dream for many. When you take the plunge to finally make it happen you’ll have lots to think about. One of the major considerations will be securing funds.

If you’re starting off a new business you may need a hand to get your vision off the ground. An organisation like SCORE could provide the support you need; it’s a Small Business Administration that has helped thousands of small businesses launch and grow.

Bear the following tips in mind as you start the process of securing investment for your small business:

1. Start early

If you have savings that you can put towards launching your business or expanding it, make it one of the first things you do. If you’re looking to secure investment and raise funds for your business, you’ll be impressing potential investors by showing them that you’re committed to your idea and backing it with your own money.

2. Have a plan

If you want to be taken seriously by investors, you need to make sure you have a growth plan in place so that you’re able to demonstrate a realistic outlook for further expansion.
This will give investors the confidence that you are serious about your plans. Investors will expect a long-term plan for development, with detail and forecast revenue; a good idea in isolation isn’t enough.

3. Recruit well

If your start-up is larger than a one-person operation it’s essential you have a solid team of people behind you. An experienced, enthusiastic and knowledgeable team around you provides potential investors with confidence. Choose wisely!

4. Approach experienced investors

Background research will prove whether or not a potential investor has experience when it comes to companies similar to you. You should ideally approach those who have a good track record when it comes to helping businesses comparable to you. They may offer more than just money - their knowledge and previous experience could be extremely valuable for you.

5. Point of Sale System

A Point of Sale System is where your customers make payments for items that they buy from your company. Such a system allows you to have much better control over your business operations as you know exactly what’s been sold on a daily or monthly basis, how many products you have in the warehouse and how much money you’ve made. You can keep track of your inventory through analyzing sales processes, sales reports and other data.

6. Be patient

Raising funds is never going to be straightforward and it most certainly won’t happen overnight. It takes time and patience so stick with it and don’t give up - honestly, it will be worth it in the end.

7. Be flexible

Investors want to see a return after offering you funding, so make sure that you’re flexible with the level of control that you are giving them when it comes to the decision making process. If they’re able to see that you can easily be a success without too much legislation and paperwork, they might be likely to invest.

8. Showcase your best pitching skills

If you’re looking to gain investment, you really need to possess strong pitching skills. Investors need to see a clear and concise plan of the future direction of your business, exactly how their money is going to help, and when they might see a return on their investment. Practice makes perfect so make sure that you don’t neglect the preparation stage.

Securing investments can be a daunting process, but it can be done. Prepare thoroughly, do your homework, be confident, explain your vision clearly, and you’ll have a great chance of succeeding.

When it comes to financial investment, whether it's in supply chains or your employees, business decisions are an everyday chore. If you add Brexit, hurricanes and fluctuating stocks to the mix, planning for uncertainty can become tedious. Here Lena Shishkina, head of finance, EMEA and APJ at Workday, provides Finance Monthly with some insight into planning for uncertainty.

The level of uncertainty that businesses have to deal with today due to various political, social and economic forces is almost unprecedented. From fluctuating currencies and political leadership to other disruptive events such as Brexit, there are plenty of reasons for a degree of global anxiety. The reality is that the effects of these things are still unknown. Business leaders are in a state of flux, questioning how this instability will affect trading, regulation, policies, and markets, for instance.

This level of uncertainty is impacting the finance world most. Now more than ever striking a balance between executing the day-to-day and future planning is critical. Unfortunately, not everyone has this mastered just yet. Despite the advent of tools such as big data and predictive analytics, recent figures show that 50 percent of businesses cannot create revenue forecasts past the next six months.

When uncertainty strikes, the c-suite tends to revert to requesting more frequent forecasts and adopting a ‘what about now’ mindset. While this tends to be a knee-jerk reaction, finance planning is only effective if it is based on relevant, real-time data.

Expecting the unexpected

It’s probably from personal experience that most financial professionals know that an annual budget can be rendered useless in the space of a few days. This is due to the unexpected nature of market volatility and political changes for instance that can shape the future of companies.

This is why continuous planning is being widely adopted by organisations, as it allows them to have the ability to re-run forecast predictions based on these kinds of changes. And it works: businesses that have already adopted this methodology claim to be almost twice as likely as their peers who haven’t accurately forecast earnings between plus or minus 5 percent.

Another benefit is that this kind of approach can create and develop the authority of the finance department. In fact, the same study found that respondents were three times more likely to report increased stakeholder confidence, and finance leaders were four times more likely to be able to respond more quickly to market disruption.

Despite the clear advantages of this methodology, why do many so companies still choose not to go down this path? A lot of businesses continue to rework forecasting on outdated budgets, which breeds inaccuracies and further trepidation. Financial professionals need to rethink their forecasts and look beyond financial data to ensure their projections are robust, accurate and of the highest quality.

Continuous planning and the importance of non-financial data

Non-financial data has traditionally been left out of forecasting largely because it is not as quantifiable or predictable, but executives can no longer get away with that thinking. A recent report found that executives who make better use of non-financial data are more than twice as likely to be able to forecast beyond a 12-month horizon.

Take workforce costs, for example. This is typically an organisation’s greatest expenditure and relies on much more than just financial data for an accurate forecast. That includes everything from anticipated salary to recruitment plans as it paints a more comprehensive view that teams can then use for an accurate look at the future.

A robust data set is one thing. But being able to adjust forecasts in real-time as changes arise at the last minute is just as vital. This is where continuous planning can be truly valuable as it adds context from across the organisation, helping to involve more stakeholders and providing deeper visibility into plans and real-time revisions. A rolling model means the business is in a much better position to react quickly to external factors and give the organisation the visibility they need when these changes arise.

Innovation is key

In theory, continuous planning is a saviour for financial services professionals. However, the reality is most organisations do not have the infrastructure or technology in place to support it in practice. Embracing new technology is the only way organisations will be able to seamlessly bring together rolling forecasts and non-financial data.

The fragmented way finance teams currently work is stifling operational agility. All too often, they are using a mixture of legacy tools from a variety of vendors, which makes it difficult to integrate data sets and make educated decisions. Organisations can no longer afford to base their decisions on luck; they have to start rethinking their technology and the foundation it’s built on. It is the only way to achieve real transformational change. A visionary CFO and a highly engaged finance team will see that and be well placed to usher in this new era.

Determining the future

The only constant in this world is change. And as this time of uncertainty shows no signs of slowing, continuous planning is the only antidote. The combination of rolling forecasts alongside both non-financial and financial data is a significant step in effectively predicting future business outcomes. As a finance professional, you’ll no longer feel like you’re being asked to gaze into your crystal ball, you’ll finally have the answers.

John Orlando is the Executive Vice President and CFO of Centage Corporation - a leading provider of automated budgeting and planning software solutions. With his previous experience concentrated on Financial Planning and Analysis, John has now been with Centage for over 13 years. Here he introduces Finance Monthly to the company and the services that it offers and discusses the relationship between business decisions and technology.

Could you tell us about the Company’s ethics and priorities toward its clients?

 Centage has been providing budgeting and planning software solutions for over 15 years. We understand that the most important aspect of your job is to develop accurate and timely budgets and forecasts that help you drive the growth and profitability for your company. Everything we do at Centage, from a client perspective; product technology, functionality; through to training, services and support, is dedicated to making the client experience unique. That is our number one priority.

Tell us more about the Budgeting and Forecasting services that Centage offers.

Budget Maestro by Centage is an easy-to-use, scalable, cloud-based budgeting and forecasting solution that eliminates the time-consuming and error-prone activities associated with using spreadsheets. It is designed for small to mid-market companies to support a comprehensive Smart Budgets approach to corporate planning. Its built-in financial and business logic allows users to quickly create and update their budgets and forecasts and never worry about formulas, functions, links or any custom programming. It is the only solution in the market that offers synchronized P&L, balance sheet and automatically generated cash flow reporting. Today, Budget Maestro serves more than 9,000 users worldwide.

How has Centage developed into the company that it is today?

 The company was created because the founders saw a need for a budgeting and forecasting solution that was more automated than what existed in the marketplace at the time. We respected the people and the processes that go into creating accurate and timely budgets and forecasts and thought there was a better way. We understood that giving financial professionals a tool that had all the financial and operational logic pre-built was crucial. This went against the traditional formula-based applications that were in existence. Additionally, Centage developed a full set of synchronized financial statements that included a Pro Forma Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow that were automatically generated.

The CFO role in general is important to any company because it brings operational and financial discipline to the organization. I am involved with and required to be familiar with every facet of the organization from financial accounting to operations to human resources, etc. I believe these responsibilities, along with my experience in the FP&A arena building many budgets and forecasts over the course of 25+ years, has helped Centage to build the best budgeting and forecasting application that we could.

What is the role that technology plays in transforming data for better business decisions?

 Technology and business decisions are inexorably linked. All the advances in business over the past 50 years have been related to technology. It has given us the ability to take massive amounts of information from accounting systems, CRM systems and operational systems, condense them in one place and give businesses the ability to instantly review the information for trends and make informed decisions in a much shorter timeframe with little need for manual intervention.

In the case of a CRM system such as Salesforce.com, once you start to use the application it is difficult to fathom how you would have run your sales organization any other way. There are too many pieces of information to keep track of and too many data points could be missed.

Centage similarly has used technology to make our product, Budget Maestro robust and agile by eliminating all the mundane work associated with preparing budgets and forecasts. We specialize in building out all of the financial and operational finance logic so that the client, as the user, only needs to concentrate on building a set of good business assumptions. Our reporting solution, Analytics Maestro, gives our clients the ability to take the data in Budget Maestro or their resident accounting system, and manipulate and analyze the data very quickly, so that more informed business decisions can be made.

What do you anticipate for the sector in the near future?

One thing that has become clear over the past 2-3 years is that budgeting and forecasting is moving from the realm of isolated 12-month timeframes and annual budgets and forecasts, to more of a rolling budget / forecast approach that takes into account anywhere from 18- 36 month timeframes. This allows the user to plan for a much longer horizon.
Secondly, customers have been asking for budgeting and forecasting systems to reach out to other sub
ledger systems such as Salesforce, Payroll etc., to gather information, eliminating the need to manually intervene in the data gathering process.

Visit us at www.centage.com , follow us on Twitter, or visit the Centage Blog for the latest insights on budgeting and forecasting strategies.

Email: jorlando@centage.com

Phone: (508) 948-0024

Recent research by Reckon, the software developer, says that financial management is the biggest concern of small business owners across the country.

59% of small businesses owners in the Reckon study said they asked are concerned about financial management and demonstrate the real importance of financial literacy as a key skill for business owners, as well as the need for more support and advice for small businesses.

This has implications for business owners at the end of the financial year, when they will face huge pressure to whip their financial records into shape for tax purposes. Doing so without the necessary expertise or knowledge, however, makes the task even more difficult.

Business plan

First things first: a business plan which indicates the long-term strategy of your business – including financial targets, budgets, and profit and loss forecasts – can help you to get a handle on the potential cash flow your business will deal with.

Not sure how to create one? There are some questions you need to be asking to enable a solid plan and here are our top three:

Have you got a robust book-keeping practice?

It goes without saying, but good record keeping is incredibly important.

Money is the lifeblood of any business, and knowing how much of it has gone and where, will give you a clearer understanding of your financial position.

While tracking expenses and outlay is often a dull task, doing so will give you an understanding of your finances and a degree of control. And it’s just as important to regularly review your finances – don’t think that just because they’re in place, they’re looking after themselves.

This is particularly important when it comes to self-assessment tax. When it comes to tax, you want to be positive that you’re submitting accurate and detailed records. Good bookkeeping practice is the only way to guarantee this.

With the rise in popularity of digital accounting software, there are a number of options available to small business owners. Make sure to choose one which is suitable for the needs and requirements of your business.

Do you really understand your cash flow?

This will stem naturally from good bookkeeping practices, but having an insight into the financial trends of your business will give you certainty and clarity about what you can afford and when.

Different industries will have different cash flows.

In retail, knowing how much of your equity is tied up in stock will be important; for other services with a cash-on-delivery arrangement, being able to tide your business over between contracts is important.

Being familiar with your cash flow will help you to understand the natural peaks and troughs of your business.

When and how to seek professional help?

If you’re uncomfortable with doing the number crunching by yourself, then you need to enlist the help of a trained professional to help manage your money. Small business owners can seek advice from accountants, banks, and Independent Financial Advisers.

Accountants can offer a basic service which will reduce the workload of any business owner. This will range from helping you to file your tax forms correctly and on time, to helping you reduce to reduce your tax bill through legal means.

Banks can offer advice to their customers. However, while they will be able to identify the needs of your business, any product or service they offer will not necessarily be the best one on the market, as of course they aren’t independent.

On the other hand, an Independent Financial Adviser (or IFA) can offer tailored advice on your financial position, identifying the unique needs of your business and guiding you to the most appropriate solutions.

From business insurance through to long-term planning for retirement, IFAs are able to examine your business and help you to understand your finances and offer impartial advice on who can offer you and your business the best solutions.

While outsourcing financial management to a professional can be costly, it may represent the best value over the long-term. Professional financial advisers are able to offer specialist expert advice, tailored to the unique needs and requirements of your business. Ultimately, consulting a professional can give you confidence when it comes to your financial management.

(Source: Reckon)

Here James Kipling, Product Manager at Quantrix, outlines for Finance Monthly the importance of good forecasting and gives an insight into its impact on businesses.

The rise of ‘Big Data’ has seen technology companies, of all shapes and sizes, vying to increase the speed and effectiveness at which they analyse trends in customer data, production data and macro-economic financial data. In order to identify trends and areas where they can gain efficiencies, these companies are likely to analyse all of the data sources available. So, what’s the problem?

Put simply, analysing data and trends with business intelligence tools alone does little to highlight the opportunities available for a business to capitalise on – meaning time, money and resources are frequently wasted. In a competitive environment, it’s easy to be left behind. But, there is a way forward – through superior business forecasting.

There are many types of business forecasting – demand planning, sales forecasting, inventory planning, capacity planning, and financial forecasting, to name just a few. For many companies, forecasts guide and drive business activity, so it is vitally important forecast models are based on reliable data, cover the full spectrum of likely scenarios and are integrated with the rest of the business to show the full ‘cause and effect’ of scenario changes as they ripple through an organisation.

It’s not about having all the data, but having the relevant data.

The most successful companies facilitate the bi-directional flow of information between business intelligence (looking at historic data) and forecasting (modelling the future) functions within their organisation. Beginning with robust basic forecasts to test assumptions, an opportunity is identified, forecasts are refined with the aid of historical data and trends, action is made to capitalise on the opportunity, and critically, the results of the action are fed back into the future forecasts to further refine their accuracy and effectiveness.

Too often, companies do not begin with accurate forecasting and the effects can have dramatic and far reaching consequences.

“There are so many challenges, really, and people tend to make emotional rather than objective decisions,” says George Pappas, a venture capital-affiliated software executive. “They also tend to make their models match their expectations. But really, the levers that drive results are too complicated in most cases to model in a program like Excel.”

Take the real-world scenario below of a company developing assumptions for new customer growth, including the sales cycle, close rate, deployment time, and economics:

Through a flattened Excel view of the sales booking of these new customers, the assumptions seem reasonable:

But then you look at result of these assumptions. A multi-dimensional model shows the reality: if you sell this way and your deployment time is as predicted, you must be prepared to handle rolling out to 70 locations in one month at peak load and staffing.

This one example clearly shows the benefits of good forecasting. Without this insight, the company profiled – and still in its early days of development – would have been seriously hindered.

Given the complexity of today’s businesses, companies should be wary of the tools they select for forecasting. Indeed, many are using solutions that simply aren’t sophisticated enough to handle the task at hand.

The go-to tool for forecasting in almost all industries is the traditional spreadsheet, meaning businesses open themselves to well-documented risks such as calculation performance, a lack of transparency and perhaps the most pressing issue of all – errors.  And then, once a company has invested time to build a spreadsheet model robust enough to capture the key drivers of the business, often the nature of the forecast has changed.

Forecasting is time consuming, and can involve consolidating, summarizing, communicating, explaining and reviewing. Unfortunately for businesses, the hours and weeks spent creating forecasts means they can potentially become redundant after completion – with forecast-horizons passing or the initial conditions changing. Because of these challenges, the frequency of accurate forecasting within a company suffers.

Some successful companies incorporate a minimum of an 18-month rolling forecast. This allows them to ‘peek’ around the corner early on, leading to an increased speed of planning and budgeting – generally these companies are well-oiled ships and start by forecasting the future as a basis for all decisions. But such companies are rare.

Only 19% of survey respondents to the PwC budgeting and forecasting survey used a “best-in-breed” planning and forecasting application to aid in the rapid creation of accurate forecasts. In the same survey, ATK’s director of finance, Michael Varecka, draws interesting insights into the mindset of analysts, suggesting one way to ease the transition away from spreadsheets is to introduce best-in-breed systems which can accommodate a degree of personalisation whilst staying close to the financial truth. The goal is to reduce spreadsheet reliance, not to fully eliminate it.

The message to businesses needs to be loud and clear. If organisations lack confidence or accuracy in their forecasts, their conservative approach will lead to missed opportunities – or on the flip side – an overly optimistic forecast will mean they rely on opportunities that simply don’t exist. But get forecasting right and you’re in for a much easier ride.

JLL has launched ‘More than the last mile’, a research report which examines how smarter logistics will help shape cities in the future. Commenting on JLL’s report, Andy Harding, lead director of JLL’s Industrial & Logistics Group, said: “Spurred by the growth of e-commerce and demand for last-mile fulfilment facilities, there has been increasing interest in urban logistics among property developers and investors. However, this is only a part of the story, as the issues associated with logistics in cities are much wider than servicing e-commerce growth. Cities present many challenges but also significant opportunities for real estate in the future. We believe that environmental and efficiency challenges will transform logistics operations in Europe’s major cities.”

Key JLL research highlights include:

• Anticipated rise in demand for different types of logistics facilities, including transhipment facilities (where goods can be transferred onto environmentally friendly vehicles); shared-user consolidation centres; local facilities for last mile fulfilment; multi-storey buildings and underground facilities.
• A need to find new models of city logistics which are sustainable and maximise efficiency while minimising adverse environmental and social impacts, such as air pollution and noise.
• Developing technologies have the potential to address both efficiency and environmental objectives but there are no immediate quick wins.
• Old technologies should not be ignored as partial solutions may be found by looking ‘back to the future’, including, for example, the use of rail or bicycles.
• Increased night-time deliveries in cities would make more effective use of the transport network at times when it has capacity and would cut down peak traffic impacts.
• Logistical considerations need to be at the forefront of city planning and building design.
• Warehouses and suitable land for logistics activities will remain critical for efficient city logistics but if these activities are pushed too far out of the cities they service, this will drive up ‘stem distances’ (from warehouse to customers) and potentially emissions.
• Varying interests of the different stakeholders in city logistics need to be addressed in order to identify new approaches that satisfy all of them.
• Logistics in cities present big opportunities for real estate developers and investors due to strong demand and supply dynamics.

Jon Sleeman, JLL’s head of EMEA Industrial & Logistics Research, added: “From a property market perspective, city or urban logistics buildings are often considered a separate market segment, distinct from ‘big box’ logistics properties, that are mainly clustered at Europe’s major gateways (seaports and airports), along its strategic transport corridors and around its major cities. This segmentation may be valid from a property market viewpoint, but these different types of property are often part of the same supply chains. This being the case, to understand potential opportunities for change in city logistics, we need to take a wider supply chain perspective.”

(Source: JLL)

Article 50 has been triggered, Brexit has well and truly begun. While the European Chief Negotiator for Brexit, Michael Barnier, would like negotiations to be completed within 18 months, the market characterised by economic and political uncertainty looks set to continue long into the future. So how should businesses behave? Michael Gould, CTO and Founder of Anaplan, sets out a five point guide to making the most of your business in such scenarios.

With all this in mind, businesses need to ensure that they are prepared for every eventuality. We’ve already seen shifts in exchange rates and with knock on effects such as price rises and likely regulatory and even workforce changes, there are a host of factors which businesses should already have on their agenda as having the potential to impact their organisations. With Brexit now in full swing, here are my top five tips for wrestling business success from the jaws of economic uncertainty.

1. Stop Waiting

With so many politicians, academics and economists each throwing in their two cents on Brexit it can be hard find any clarity around the real outcomes of Brexit. A recent survey by the Bank of England has shown a modest pick-up in UK investment, but businesses are still holding off on some longer-term investment due to a lack of visibility around future trading relationships. Whilst it’s tempting to hold fire on any serious decisions and adopt a ‘wait and see approach’, it could result in falling behind competitors and losing market share.

Staggeringly, our research revealed that two-fifths of businesses are yet to begin planning for Brexit. Avoid having to play catch up: take the time to gain an understanding of all the potential outcomes of Brexit and start from there. For example, businesses could use planning tools to simulate the impact of fluctuating exchange rates, or plan for potential scenarios on trade deals and tariffs. Another option is to explore different models of economic growth. A sensitivity analysis can then be run based on these projections, with the aim of mitigating risk and helping to plan for making the most of any opportunities.

2. Spot the opportunity

There’s no denying that the Brexit vote has brought an unprecedented level of uncertainty to the UK’s economy, but there are some forward-thinking businesses that have seen change as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage, and adapt their services for changing consumer requirements. In fact, our research shows nearly one in three (29%) business decision makers say that the choice to leave the EU has already positively impacted their organisation. These uncertain times can be a chance to drive operational improvements or increased revenues.

The key is to identify the opportunities early. Once you understand where the openings are, success will emanate from effective planning. This means having a real-time view of the business and the market as a whole, and being able to react quickly to the slightest change. A good mix of teamwork and the right technology are vital here.

3. Take Control

To begin with, the success or failure of this transition will come down to the quality of leadership. Informed and confident business leaders will help engender a more positive attitude across the organisation. Our research found that many employees (40%) believe that knowledge and guidance should come from the CEO. But there’s a lack of faith: only 20% of respondents actually trust their leaders to provide this expertise. An effective leader inspires in times of change and uncertainty. Those at the helm of the organisation must seize the moment, take control of the situation, and crucially, be seen to be doing so by their employees.

4. Collaborate

Strong leadership from the top is vital for any business strategy, but collaboration throughout the planning cycle is just as important. Involving employees from different teams, disciplines and levels across the organisation will bring new ideas to the table, ensure everyone is bought into the strategy, and deliver a more robust approach moving forward. In uncertain times employees will value open communication and inclusiveness even more.

5. Adopt a Data-Driven Approach

While strong leadership and collaboration are both crucial to business success, companies must have the correct tools in place to take action, or they will struggle to adapt. With this in mind, it is surprising to see that so many British businesses are still relying on technologies that were developed over 30 years ago to plan in today’s market: pen and paper (58%), email (81%), Excel (86%) and Word (80%), to name a few. They simply are not fit for purpose anymore.

The data that a business produces has to be seen as one of its most valued assets. Organisations need to take full advantage of it and use the insight to make the most relevant and informed decisions. In such a volatile market, real-time data is invaluable. For instance, managers can use their company’s data to accurately simulate the potential outcomes of any decision, and forecast the possible impact.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a step-by-step guide or a defined roadmap for what the world will look like post-Brexit. However, businesses can make sure that they are ready for every outcome, modelling and planning for all possible futures. Organisational and cultural factors will play their part in ensuring that businesses are making the most informed decisions. But, those that also take a data-driven approach with the latest technologies will be a step ahead, and ready to take advantage of every opportunity in a dynamic and shifting economic market.

A new survey, sponsored by The Brexit Tracker, has calculated that Brexit planning has already cost UK businesses, £667.2m so far in executive man hours and this figure is set to rise to £813m after Article 50 is triggered.

The survey, conducted in January, polled 168 Board Directors of UK companies with a turnover of £10m - £150m to discover the impact and cost of Brexit planning. The associated costs were a conservative calculation based on current working hours spent on Brexit planning, accounting for one individual per organisation and factoring in that 68% of organisations have at least two staff involved.

Ben Martin, founder of The Brexit Tracker said, “Our research suggests that 40% of firms have already started planning for Brexit and with 70% CEOs and CFOs being tasked with that planning you can see how already it’s becoming an expensive business.”

However, despite anticipated costs, the survey found UK businesses were predominantly positive about Brexit and leaving the EU. While many are in ‘wait and see’ mode almost twice as many respondents are positive about the benefits Brexit has had on their industry sector than are negative (39% v 21%).

37% of respondents felt there would be a positive impact on business following the triggering of Article 50 while 30% thought there would be a negative impact. But optimism rises again to 42% v 34% when considering the impact of leaving the EU in 2019.

But the survey showed that Brexit was having a negative impact on general business planning and investment. Three quarters of organisations stated the level of uncertainty impacted their ability to invest. The biggest area facing one third of organisations is developing new markets (34%) and this is most notable in Construction (58%), Professional Services (47%) and Business Service (45%). Investment in technology and recruitment were the other main areas facing uncertainty.

Ben Martin explains the thinking behind The Brexit Tracker: “Our research highlighted that although76% of respondents understand the general implications of Brexit that falls to 67% when looking at how Brexit impacts their own business. Clearly there is a knowledge gap.

“The Brexit Tracker analyses 390 economic indicators pertinent to the sector and the firm’s particular circumstance. Stakeholders can understand likely implications for their business and compare their views with those of their peers. Our tool enables expensive resource to be smartly invested in strategic planning, not squandered in trying to make sense of a myriad of factors that may or may not be relevant to the business.”

(Source: The Brexit Tracker)

Macroeconomic turbulence is the process that sets in motion change from the largest financial institutions, down to the smallest of back pocket wallets. Here to provide practiced and proven guidance on how to navigate the macroeconomics maze around us, while keeping one step ahead, is Rob Douglas, Vice President of UK & Ireland for Adaptive Insights.

As organisations enter 2017, they find themselves in a chaotic macroeconomic environment. With a great deal of change in 2016, and much more in store for 2017 as the effects of Brexit, the new American government, and countless other factors take hold, it has the potential to be a volatile year. Indeed, in a recent CFO Indicator survey, eight out of 10 CFOs considered it likely or very likely that market volatility will continue.

To cope with these market conditions, finance teams are needing to become more strategic and visibility into business data—including both financial and non-financial KPIs—is key. In another CFO Indicator survey, we found that 45 percent of CFOs report that they are currently fulfilling the role of chief data officer, compared to only 16 percent who said that the CIO has this responsibility. It is clear that CFOs and their teams are well placed to become the strategic business advisor as data ownership is shifting to the office of the CFO.

Active planning

In a constantly changing environment, finance departments can become more agile by taking an active vs. static approach to planning. Specifically, finance teams must embrace a process that is collaborative, comprehensive, and continuous to adopt an active planning process. This active planning approach allows finance to shift into a leadership and guiding role, instead of being mired in the drudgery of back-office transactional tasks.

And, as teams embrace active planning, three clear benefits start to emerge:

• Better collaboration: Active planning encourages broader participation across the organisation, by leveraging technology that makes it easier to establish a single source of shared data and customised dashboards that give users ready access to information.

• Comprehensive capabilities: A single, comprehensive process drives optimisation widely across the diverse parts of the business, and the organisation. You can reap huge benefits from real bottom-up planning and develop a robust picture of the business.

• Continuous planning: Plans are produced rapidly and can be quickly iterated so ongoing, real-time planning and rolling forecasts become the norm. FP&A can provide insights to help the business respond rapidly to changing market conditions or competitor activity.

A holistic view of the business

CFOs are being tasked with not only understanding and communicating financial results but with helping the organisation to understand the operational drivers behind them–a key factor for business agility in a volatile market. This requires much more detailed analysis of business KPIs, many of which are non-financial, and therefore involves greater collaboration and integration across the business. As such, to be agile in 2017’s changing market conditions, the finance department must have a holistic view of the business.

Fundamentally, there needs to be a single source of trusted data that is always fresh and always live, meaning that you never have to manually recalculate to be sure the numbers are up-to-date or consistent across models and reports. To be truly effective, teams will need to integrate systems into a single source, including data integration from ERP, CRM and HR systems, to name a few.

According to the CFO Indicator, CFOs expect non-financial KPIs to comprise up to 30 percent of the total KPIs tracked in two years’ time, including data as varied as customer satisfaction, employee retention, supply chain contract renewals, and more.  Once operational and financial data are assimilated into a single source of truth, it can be incorporated into reporting, planning, and forecasting. By bringing these together, the office of finance can help business leaders across the organisation to spot trends early, which will help mitigate risk and open up opportunities.

That said, identifying non-financial KPIs can be a difficult process. It requires the finance team to dig deeply into the business and to spend time engaging in analysis that leads to greater business insights. This can be done by a member of the finance team spending time in another part of the business or through training programmes that aim to generate broader business knowledge. It is important that both finance and business users are involved in everyday planning and forecasting. This inherently leads to collaboration and consequently better overall plans, budgets and forecasts, as well as organisation-wide visibility into KPIs and business performance. After all, the impact of missed forecasts can be felt far and wide, from resource allocations and supply chain management to shareholder confidence.

“What-if” analysis and multiple scenario models

The macroeconomic environment is a vitally important consideration for any business, not least because it is a factor which no business can control. A business can, however, plan and model for different scenarios to ensure that it can withstand a variety of potential consequences. In 2017, this could be a change in exchange rates due to the shifting value of the Pound or taking into account a different level of taxation due to amended trade agreements between the United Kingdom and United States.

Ultimately, ensuring a business can remain agile and withstand the tremors of a volatile market is no easy task. With data that stretches across the breadth of the business—incorporating both financial and non-financial elements—it is possible for CFOs to get a real-time, accurate picture of what the business looks like in the current environment. If done effectively, the true expertise of the finance team can then be put into play, as it has the data to analyse, model, and forecast for the future. Creating “what-if” scenarios, based on highly accurate and reliable data, will be invaluable to businesses in 2017 as they traverse an unpredictable landscape.