Integrated Business Planning Across Finance and Supply Chain

Research shows that Finance and Supply Chain teams thrive and increase the contribution to business performance when they collaborate. Such collaboration is one of the key objectives of Integrated Business Planning (IBP).

Is not a secret that the collaboration between Finance and Supply Chain teams has been a long standing issue due to the disconnected application setups used to run the business and the inevitable by-product of the division of labor: siloed organizations. Yet despite the many efforts to strengthen the partnership between these teams, some persuasive issues must still be addressed. Some opportunities to boost that collaboration exist through sharing the same objectives under a unified data model.

Collaboration Challenges between Finance and Supply Chain Teams

All too often, in integrated business planning implementations, the collaboration between Finance and Supply Chain teams is difficult due to the following challenges:

1. Data inconsistency. When planning, the Finance and Supply Chain functions don’t speak the same language. Supply Chain requires data volume and granularity, whereas Finance needs balance-level financial amounts.
2. Low demand forecasting accuracy. Ideally, demand would serve as the best baseline for planning across the enterprise. Yet producing accurate demand forecasts is onerous for many organizations amid uncertain market conditions.
3. Lack of common visibility. Getting a common view is arduous when KPIs, data and systems are not aligned or linked properly.
4. Moving trend toward service and project-driven supply chains. Bundled product and service offerings add complexity to planning and analysis.

Solving for these challenges calls for an EPM platform with one data model capable of blending supply chain and financial data. Such a platform is essential to boost collaboration between Finance and Supply Chain teams and drive efficiency improvements within integrated business planning.

5 Use Cases for Collaboration Between Finance and Supply Chain

Unifying integrated business planning with an EPM platform and one data model encourages partnership between Finance and Supply Chain teams. It also unlocks value to both teams and brings novel approaches to planning. To demonstrate that value, we’ve made available a guide for you to discover 5 integrated business planning use cases and the benefits applicable when Finance and Supply Chain teams collaborate under one EPM solution (see Figure 1).

The use cases shown in Figure 1 are just a small selection of what’s possible when Integrated Business Planning is unified with an EPM solution that fosters collaboration between Finance and Supply Chain teams.

Discover the Benefits

Are you ready to raise your integrated business planning practice? Discover the benefits of applying these use cases and having one platform with one data model.