Strategic planning and business forecasting in uncertain times

Connected planning is the process of integrating the plans across functions to enable improved insights, and reduce information siloes. It can benefit an organization by improving the accuracy of its forecast and providing efficiency gains.  

Our survey results indicate that there is a strong positive correlation between the number of functions connected and the accuracy of the forecast. Additionally, an increased number of connected business functions will ultimately result in a more accurate forecast.

To enable connected planning, businesses should have a single set of the truth data that allows organizations to link operation and financial data, collaborative ways of working across different planning functions, and alignment of processes across the organization, including planning calendars, business drivers and business hierarchies, as well as where appropriate, leveraging…