Post-pandemic budgeting – is a year still 365 days long?

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Kevin Phillips | CEO | IDU | mail me |


This article is the second in a series of three where I have considered whether budgeting and planning is now an outdated discipline. Given the rapid rate of change and high levels of unpredictability, I have explored whether it is possible to budget at the required speed and whether accountants should press reset on the corporate performance management landscape?

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, CFOs very rapidly realised that the typical annual budget cycle was no longer helpful. It neither set them up to be able to deal with the challenges that were coming in thick and fast nor did it allow them to help their organisations take advantage of opportunities.

Many companies around the world, including our clients, reported shifting to a quarterly forecasting and budgeting cycles. If that had seemed unthinkable, it very soon became outdated itself, with companies moving to monthly forecasting and needing the ability to make budget changes swiftly and on the spot. Currently, progressive companies have landed on a budget cadence that can be as short as four weeks, with weekly review sessions.

Research by Gartner says this trend will continue into 2022, with 72% of CFOs prioritising improving the flexibility of budgeting and forecasting this year, and 60% focussing on initiatives that allow them to reallocate capital in line with changing demands.

First pragmatic, then strategic

Initially, this shift was for pragmatic reasons – to manage cash flow during the health crisis – but the


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Read the full article by Kevin Phillips, CEO, IDU, as well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the June/July 2022 edition of BusinessBrief.


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