New planning and performance opportunities

for finance teams

SPEAKERS
Matthew Washington, Brian Furness, Clive Webb, Melanie Proffitt

Clive Webb 00:00

So welcome to this Accounting for the Future session 'Alternative Planning and Performance
Opportunities for Finance Teams'. My name is Clive Webb and I'm the head of business management
in ACCA's policy and insights team. And welcome to this session. We'll be talking planning and
performance management in the context of the current changing times and how this presents an
opportunity for finance teams. This session supports our recently released report 'Planning and
Performance Management Paradigm', which was published jointly by ACCA, our strategic partner
Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, and in association with PwC. Joining us today are:
Brian Furness, a partner at PwC in the UK, and one of the co-authors of the report; Melanie Proffitt, the
CFO of Farncombe Estate, a hospitality business in the UK, and an ACCA Council member; and
Matthew Washington, the CFO of Mitre 10, a retail business in New Zealand. Welcome, everybody.
Nice to have you along to the session.

Clive Webb 01:04

Before we get started, we invite you to send in some questions, which you can do at any time using the
Question area on your screens. We'll go through these in a Q&A session at the end of the main
discussion. Turning to CPD, if you're an ACCA member, you can count this webinar towards your CPD
if it's relevant to your career, you can apply the learning in the workplace, and you can provide
evidence that you've joined us today. For that evidence, we produce a personalised CPD certificate in
the Resources area of this session. Well, let's get under way. And it's time to hear from our panellists.
And let's start by asking each of them for one key message to introduce this session. Melanie, if we
could turn to you first, please.

Melanie Proffitt 01:52

Thank you, Clive. It's great to be part of this session. I think, certainly, planning and forecasting in these
disruptive times means that we need to be agile, and our ability to develop plans and monitor
performance is something that's really critical, as organisations look to finance to guide and lead us
through these times.

Clive Webb 02:14

So it's that sense of finance being the pivotal role and guide and lead, isn't it, that makes this a subject I
think that's really worth listening to. Thank you, Melanie. Matthew.

Matthew Washington 02:25

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I guess what I'd like to challenge people to do is to really ask what the definition of performance is. I
think, as accountants, we've for far too long just relied on numbers, producing percentages and
variances, etc. I think what we need to do is move on from those standard reports, and really ask what
the business needs to know, what the terminology is, what the real key performance measures are.
And, more importantly, what does the business understand? If they don't understand numbers, what do
we need to do to make sure they they get the message we want to deliver?

Clive Webb 03:00

So two points there, I think: relevance, and also that broader definition of performance, bringing the
sense of business partnering, which is, I suspect, a subject we'll turn to a little bit later on discussion.
So thank you, Matthew. And Brian: your comments.

Brian Furness 03:16

Thanks, Clive. And, I suppose, building on Matthew and Melanie's part in it, what struck me in going
through the roundtables and also looking at the survey results was the huge opportunity for finance to
step into that more holistic reporting and performance management field and the demand from the
business to do that. But on the flip-side of that, what also struck me with conversations we had was
how many finance functions are still grappling with a really very traditional process that perhaps hasn't
moved on too much in the last few years, and are grappling with data issues, particularly technology
issues, and the reliance on tools like Excel rather than some of the new cloud-based planning tools that
we see out there. So tech and data for me seemed to be one of the key areas of focus.

Clive Webb 04:03

And I think the striking point that 82% of the survey respondents that we had – we had over 3,000
respondents in our work – actually cited Excel as their main planning tool. And that remains the
accountants' proof point, doesn't it, Brian?

Brian Furness 04:20

Yeah, I suppose I wasn't surprised by the statistic of people using Excel. But I think the point you make
there, Clive, was using it as their main tool and their core tool. That was a little bit surprising as we went
through the survey and the conversations.

Clive Webb 04:36

So plenty for us to explore in this session. And we're going to have a number of conversations. One
about what we see as the current issues, and the second piece about the opportunities, and then we'll
wrap up this session with a few thoughts and key observations. As I've said, if you have any questions
or comments, please don't hesitate to put them in the Q&A, and Brian and I will be part of a live
discussion at the end of this session.

Clive Webb 05:04

In this section, we'll start looking at the as-is state, if you like, the current issues. And what I want to do
is explore with the panel what they see as their current issues in planning and performance
management, and ask them to think about two challenges that they see that finance teams have with

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that process at present. And maybe, Brian, would you mind kicking off this section of the discussion,
please?

Brian Furness 05:27

Yeah, thanks, Clive. I think linking back to the points that we raised earlier, to me the two key
challenges for finance are one of the points that Matthew raised, which is around integrated planning
and having a more holistic approach to planning and performance measurement – so not just focusing
on financial planning and performance, but looking at topics such as ESG, and other broader measures
of performance. And then the second challenge, I would say, is how does finance, again linking to
Melanie's point, how does it become more agile? How you develop plans in a more rapid timeframe?
How do you build in more scenario analysis? How do you actually be more real-time in some of your
performance management measurement? Because I think we're stuck at the moment in perhaps more
traditional cycles of quarterly planning and monthly reporting. And I think that pace needs to change, as
business pace is changing all the time. So to me, those are the two key challenges.

Clive Webb 06:30

Okay, thank you. Melanie, in the business you're in, obviously, the last few years have been, should I
say challenging? Is that a good word? How do those points resonate with you? And what other
changes do you see at a practical level?

Brian Furness 06:30

And underneath that, I think, we've obviously got challenges around organisational structure and
people operating in siloed ways across the organisation. We've got challenges around poor data. We've
got challenges around technology, and I think also skillsets and behaviours across the finance team as
well. So two key challenges to me are integrated reporting and integrated planning, and that agility
piece.

Melanie Proffitt 07:14

They resonate hugely, actually, when we talked about being agile and perhaps looking at historical
trends – and certainly, the last two years have looked nothing like our normal trends. So I think, for me,
the traditional cycle of planning and being backward-looking, and using that trend analysis, is certainly
not going to help the business going forward. It wouldn't help my business, for example, in terms of
what's happening. I think that sort of a challenge, needing to change the way that you are forecasting
and planning, and it has to be a lot more real-time.

Melanie Proffitt 07:58

I think also, for me, another key aspect is the supply chains, and just how much they impact on the
business. If I think about my business, in terms of labour supply, I think everyone's been struggling with
that in terms of how can we deliver the service with restricted capacity. But also the food supplies. It's
been well reported, the disruption to food and the prices. Having to try and integrate that into your
planning cycle. Just to throw a tidbit in from from my industry, on one single day we had six and a half
thousand food items with price increases. So integrating that into your planning cycle, and being able to
forecast and respond to that in a timely manner, is critical. Just to wrap it up, it's really about moving

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from being rearward-looking, and integrating the supply chains, and being more integrated in the way
we forecast and plan.

Clive Webb 09:09

So we're in a very dynamic space, aren't we, that we haven't been used to for probably as long as any
of us can remember. And that really impacts this planning cycle. It's that agility, it's that being able to
deal with the uncertainty, which actually keeps hitting you in waves.

Melanie Proffitt 09:27

Exactly. And I think the traditional view of perhaps doing this on an annual basis – if you look at the
timeline of when you typically do your planning and your forecasting, they're out of date, the moment
you've written them in today's world. And so that agility and being able to respond. I think it's not just
the fact that the world's changing, it's the pace that it's changing. There's the impact that it has. It's not
small incremental changes any more, because we're in this environment where we're not talking 1 or
2%, we're talking 10% – the impact on the business is significant. We've talked about the need to not
just look at financial data; it's non-financial data that's giving us indicators as to what's happening out
there as well.

Clive Webb 10:23

Thank you. I'm struck by a comment, something Brian and Melanie both said, of one CFO we talked to
who works at the portfolio level across a range of businesses, and he was basically saying that the
planning performance process is a carbon copy in every single organisation, and we don't necessarily
innovate it. And that's almost your point, isn't it, Melanie? There's an opportunity to change, but we do
what we do because that's safe. Matthew, how do the changes look from the New Zealand angle and
from your retail business?

Matthew Washington 10:54

Well, very much like Melanie. Even though New Zealand is at the bottom of the world, we are very
much exposed to the global nature of disruption and volatility. And just picking up on one of Melanie's
points, the degree of change and speed of change is phenomenal. I think one of the challenges that we
have is the traditional view of changing one factor, or one assumption, in a model, and you focus on
that one – for example, it might be exchange rates, foreign exchange rates. I think the challenge now is
every single line in the P&L, every single line, has been impacted by inflation or supply chain disruption
or whatever it is. I think that just adds another dimension to it. It's a challenge, because you really do
need to focus on what matters. Everything is moving, but you kind of have to have that real close link to
your value maps, I guess, in your business to understand what factors you should really be drilling into.

Matthew Washington 11:59

That leads, I guess, on to what is another challenge; in some respects, it's a good challenge or it's a
good problem to have. Certainly, what I've found in the business is that fellow execs and other business
unit managers, because of that volatility, they have reached out more to finance. They have actually
wanted more insight. Traditionally, they would keep us away and at arm's length and don't want us
anywhere near their business units. But what I'm experiencing is that people are more aware of
inflation, they're more aware of supply chain disruptions and what they can do, and international freight

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rates, etc. So it is a good problem to have. The challenge is actually meeting the demands of those
users, because those users are getting more sophisticated. People are talking more about these sort of
issues, which traditionally accountants would sit in the corner arguing over; now the rest of the business
is.

Clive Webb 12:54

Brian, just to wrap this bit up on current issues. What we're hearing, I think, is these issues create an
opportunity for finance. That we can't afford to stand still. But we've got to understand what the issues
are in order to build the tomorrow – and we'll talk about that tomorrow bit in the next section of this
discussion. But that's really what I hear and what the survey data told us, I think.

Brian Furness 13:19

I think, yeah, both the surveys and the roundtables we had with the CFOs and finance professionals,
there was opportunity, everyone was excited about opportunity, excited about stepping into that new
role that both Melanie and Matthew have talked about. But I think on the flip-side, as I said, of that,
there's also some nervousness about some finance teams of stepping into it. There's some skill change
perhaps needed, there's some technology investment needed from organisations to enable them to do
that. So it's a great opportunity, but I think what we also saw in the report was that many feel they're not
quite grasping that at the moment.

Clive Webb 14:07

So the story is, don't be complacent about where you are. Repeating the same process year on year
isn't going to help your business. And there is an opportunity that finance needs to grasp, as Matthew
said, and Melanie, in this very volatile world. If we don't model the business properly, then decision-
making becomes intrinsically difficult.

Clive Webb 14:32

Well, thank you all very much. That's where we sit with the current issues. In the report, we explore
quite a lot of those and some of the myths of planning and performance management. I'll draw your
attention to the report, which goes into a bit more detail of some of the, let's say, causal factors that can
create a business case for change that Brian was talking about.

Clive Webb 14:54

So that's looked at the current state and the issues that organisations face. As we've said in that
discussion, every issue creates an opportunity. So let's really focus on the opportunity for finance now,
and what practically we can do to move our planning and performance management processes
forwards. Melanie, if I can turn to you first. Looking towards the future and those opportunities, should
finance be taking a broader view of performance, rather than simply just a financial lens? And if so, how
do they do it? And how does it relate to what you're doing in your business?

Melanie Proffitt 15:32

Yeah, absolutely, we definitely need to be taking a broader view, and looking at not just the financial
data but the non-financial data. If I just relate that to my business in hospitality, we're in a dynamic
situation at the moment, with price rises and all of these sorts of things. So one of the things that we

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have a look at for our pricing strategy is TripAdvisor, and we look at the scores. But we don't just look at
how we're doing, we look in detail, and particularly at the value for money score. And that's giving us
live feedback from our guests around how they're responding to our pricing strategy. That can play a
key role in helping us forecast and plan, and how we can keep the business financially sustainable in
terms of the ability to pass on these cost rises to our guests in such a way that we don't damage our
image and our appeal to guests.

Melanie Proffitt 16:48

It's a pinch point really, Clive. You're looking at it not just in the context of your competitors. Equally,
you don't want to be 5 out of 5, because potentially you could probably charge a little bit more. But you
don't want to be really low, because then they are going to probably be going to the competition, and
they're not seeing you as good value for money. We operate very much at the luxury end, so we want
people to say, 'Well, that was expensive, but boy, was it good!' So it's that value for money piece. We
invest in our team and we invest in our infrastructure so that we can deliver that high quality. But it
comes at a cost, so we need to make sure that we remain viable. So we're looking at non-financial data
that wouldn't necessarily be on the radar of the finance teams, dipping into TripAdvisor and checking
how we're doing, when they're propping their prices on the budget or the forecast to make sure that
we're covering our costs.

Clive Webb 17:53

Does that build on something Matthew said earlier on about really understanding the business model?
And understanding how what you do from a finance perspective changes those levers of appreciation,
which then tells you more about how the business operates? There are multiple bits to that, aren't
there, Melanie?

Melanie Proffitt 18:11

Yeah, exactly, there is. It's something that Matthew was talking about. You suddenly become the
general manager's best friend in terms of he's looking at his TripAdvisor. He might be looking to see if
anyone's complaining and responding to a complaint. When you're sitting down and looking at the
forecast and saying, okay, what does the next month look like? Or what does the next 12 months look
like? What's our pricing strategy? How does that cover our cost base? There's a – and we've talked
about it in the report – there's this business partner approach, where you are sitting side by side with
the operation, and working, but not just your historical trends or putting your annual increase in and
passing on the 10% that you're incurring. But actually having a look at opportunities for perhaps pricing
in some future costs that are coming around the corner, rather than necessarily just applying your
annual increase every year.

Melanie Proffitt 19:09

It becomes a lot more tactical – and again, we talked about this – and working collaboratively with the
business. It's definitely something, this leaning on this non-financial data, that can really make the
teams add value. Again, we talk about being the chief value officer. So this for me is really where the
team can start to play a key part in this process.

Clive Webb 19:40

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Brian, if I can build on that. That underlines, what Melanie has been saying, the importance of data,
how you use that data and having the right tools to be able to analyse. Because one of the things
Melanie talked about there was sophistication, the pricing decision that all organisations are going to
face now. As Matthew said, it's a multiline challenge. Does that resonate with you?

Brian Furness 20:03

Well, I think if we move to data and technology, one of the questions we talked about before this call
was how important our data and technology are in assisting finance and driving some of those insights.
From what Melanie has just said, you can see they're critical. Not only financial data, but other data
sets that perhaps you traditionally wouldn't look at from a finance perspective. As Melanie hinted at,
other parts of the organisation may look at them but for different purposes. But finance are now having
to dig into that data and work with others across the organisation and look for different themes coming
out of it, and how they can factor that into the planning and performance management.

Brian Furness 20:47

Two things on data. One is traditional finance data often tends to be a little bit shaky in some
organisations and requires a lot of reconciliation and people spending a lot of time getting it accurate.
And perhaps finance teams aren't used to looking at new sets of data and bringing that into their
forecasting models. I think there's two challenges here, really. On the traditional data, how can you
move away from some of those reconciliation and data crunching activities, and really look at what the
data is showing you? And on the new data sources, where should you be going? What data should you
be bringing in? How reliable is it? What is it showing you? Business understanding is equally as
important, I think, as the tech and data point.

Brian Furness 21:37

But linking back to what we said earlier about the use of Excel, from what Melanie was saying and what
Matthew has also said, you can see how simple models such as that way you flex one or two variables
just can't give you the kind of analysis you need nowadays. Looking at the cloud-based and newer
planning tools, and looking at how you can incorporate AI and machine learning into your analysis, is
going to be increasingly important, I think, for finance teams going forward. And partly that demands a
skillset change and and upskilling. But it's also a slightly different attitude to where they get the data
from, how they validate that data, and what level of certainty they need around the data before they can
work with it. So long answer, but I think critically important is data sourcing and the technology used to
drive the insights.

Clive Webb 22:33

And we shouldn't be afraid, should we, of moving that technology landscape forwards? Because that
proof point of that 82% that use Excel – if we don't move it forwards, then we're always going to be
stuck in some kind of issue. There's a nice case study in the report, isn't there, about somebody that's
implemented one of those XP&A tools to help deal with the real challenge at the time of the pandemic?

Brian Furness 22:59

Yeah, and it sounds like we're saying people should move away from Excel. That's kind of not what
we're saying; we're just saying that's part of the argument for a finance team. But the tools they use are

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expanding and changing in their nature. Part of the challenge is understanding when is each tool
applicable. How should you use them? How can you use them together to deliver real value to the
business? And absolutely Excel is still important in that, but so are other newer planning tools that you
reference.

Clive Webb 23:32

Matthew, in all of this, I come back to that old adage of 'people, process technology and data'. So we've
done the technology and the data. What about the people and the process bit in planning and
performance management?

Matthew Washington 23:44

That's right. You can have the best tools in the world and the best information, but if you don't have the
right people using those tools, you don't really go anywhere, do you? But both Brian and Melanie
picked up on a couple of good points, and just bringing it back to our business, we have some quite
well-defined mindsets that we expect to have in our team members right across the organisation. And
certainly it goes for finance as well. One of them is working collaboratively. We are a cooperative
business, so we very much rely on people working collaboratively across the network. I think Brian
used the term collaboration. And I think that's absolutely key.

Matthew Washington 24:24

But one other thing that Melanie picked up on was openness to learning. We have another mindset
that's called empowering or open to learning. Effectively, that's curiosity. If you can merge those two
together, you've got people working collaboratively and people who are really inquisitive about how the
business operates. That's a huge strength to have in your finance team. But with all that said, I think it
still comes down to having those talented people with those right mindsets. But you've really got to
understand strategy. I think if the finance team and marketing and ops and everybody in the business
are aligned to the same general strategy, it makes it so much easier for those inquisitive people to work
collectively in the business, because you're all talking about the same sort of goal.

Matthew Washington 25:19

I mentioned before 'value maps'. We're a retailer, and I think retailers are traditionally quite simplistic in
their value maps: you get more people through the door and sell more to them, and everybody's happy.
But there's a lot more to it. And what I've noticed in the last couple of years with value mapping is the
introduction of very much non-traditional non-finance data. Melanie was talking about her social media
insights; in retail, we have them up the wazoo with CX, NPS – all sorts of measures, which are fine as
long as you understand the link they have to the overall strategy, those objectives and key results. I
think the culture is a huge part of it, but if you don't have that link back to strategy, the outputs will be
very suboptimal.

Matthew Washington 25:19

This all sounds like we're back to the business partnering role and the fundamental part and importance
of that. Maybe, Matthew and Melanie, some thoughts from the two of you about the link between that
business partner role and the planning and performance cycle.

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Matthew Washington 26:39
Yeah, the business partner role. Everybody talks about business partnership. I think the question really
has to be the effectiveness of it, to become an effective business partner. I guess the key for me is
understanding what stakeholders actually require. So the requirements of, say, a marketing team will
be different to the ops, to the logistics, etc. But any finance team typically has a very unique position.
We typically have access to a wider view of the business. So we're in a very powerful role of connecting
people and connecting different departments, different users.

Matthew Washington 27:27

Again, it comes back to that strategy, or fully understanding what the key drivers are. So it's making
those connections and aligning those two strategic priorities. If you can do that, we can be very
powerful as business partners, and then very effective in connecting the decision-makers, which is
something finance traditionally hasn't been good at. Well, it's seen as a back-office function – that's a
very traditional view. I think the future of finance is definitely business partners. As Brian said before,
it's the data, it's connecting those dots, and effectively pulling the puzzle together. Finance typically is
the lead group in that sort of function in a business.

Clive Webb 28:15

Melanie, any thoughts?

Melanie Proffitt 28:18

Yeah, I totally agree with everything that Matthew's said. I agree that it is getting this business partner
role really embedded in the business. Just to add, it's about making sure that your stakeholders are
coming with you. Essentially you've got to use language or engage with them in a way that they
understand. Just emailing out your wonderful spreadsheet that means loads to you but nothing to them
is not going to be helpful. It is about thinking about who you're engaging with and who you're talking to,
and making the information that you're presenting accessible and understandable to them.

Melanie Proffitt 29:08

But equally, I think being curious and taking an interest in how they can add extra colour to the picture
that you're creating. I always talk to my team about the fact that what we do is we enable the business
to make good decisions. So we're an enabler, not somebody who's just reporting on historical trends.
We're actually trying to help the business make good decisions and drive that in performance. So I
think, just a few little bits there to add from my perspective, but it's all about this collaboration and
working together to drive ultimately better decisions and better planning.

Clive Webb 29:51

Brian, picking up on that enablement phrase that Melanie used a moment ago. The drive towards the
non-financial reporting, the ESG agenda, and then bringing them back into the performance
management cycle is starting to become absolutely fundamental, isn't it? Because there is this
dichotomy between short-term cost saving and long-term sustainable, or even medium-term
sustainable business. The conversation with one CFO for the report was, I can't cut costs too much,
because I won't have a business in 18 months' time to grow. And that balance, as we've heard from

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Matthew, is a lot different now. So how does the ESG agenda fit into this? And how do we drive that
forward?

Brian Furness 29:51

I think that's a huge challenge, particularly at the moment, isn't it, where businesses are struggling to
understand what their performance is like today and what it will be like tomorrow with all the changes
that are happening in the environment around us. But ESG is one of the most critical problems we're
going to face in the world as a whole. So finance has a role to play in that in terms of both reporting
where you are today, but also supporting your decision-making going forward as an organisation, to
make sure that you're doing the right things, you're delivering on your purpose, and you're making a
difference.

Brian Furness 31:15

To me, one of the critical areas around that is, or one of the critical challenges is, who is looking at that
within the finance function at the present moment in time? Quite often, business partnering teams are,
understandably, drawn out of traditional finance professionals. I think bringing in new areas such as
ESG, new areas of reporting, means we're going to have to look to other skills and capabilities, to bring
them into the finance team. People from a different background, people from different industries, people
from different functions across your organisation, maybe. Those business partnering teams, I think, are
going to change over time, and be built on people with different skillsets and different perspectives.

Brian Furness 32:02

It's definitely a challenge, and balancing that long and short term is a challenge. But the role of finance,
I think, is to challenge the business, is to be that critical adviser, as Melanie said, that enabler. One of
those key challenges is around that short versus long term, and single view of performance in financial
performance terms versus broader view. So I think we're going to see a big change in the next few
years around how business partnering teams are structured and the kind of individuals and skills they
have in there and the tools they're using in the day-to-days.

Clive Webb 32:43

Melanie, somebody listening to this would inevitably say, what skills do I need to grow? What advice
would you give to somebody about the skills they need to grow, to make sure they're relevant to the
planning and performance management cycle?

Melanie Proffitt 33:03

It's an interesting one, isn't it, when you talk about the skills? We've talked a lot around business
partnering, and again, I come back to what I was saying earlier – that ability to communicate and be
able to take your stakeholders with you, being able to communicate your financial data in a way that the
people within the business are going to understand. I do think we need to develop these soft skills so
that we're not just using the technical skills we develop through our training in terms of manipulating our
spreadsheets; it's the ability to communicate and work collaboratively with the business partners.

Melanie Proffitt 33:44

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And building on what Matthew was saying earlier, it's that ability to stay curious and interested so that
you're working with the business and you're understanding what the data means that you're working
with, and looking at the technologies we can use that will help the business make better decisions
going forward. So it's being open to new ways of working, new technology, change. That ability to
communicate and work with the business for me is one of the key things. You need to be able to add
value with those. Finance professionals are very good at the data, but it's that extra insight that will
come from business, not just from the hard cold black and white numbers on a piece of paper.

Clive Webb 34:36

So it's about being curious, continuously learning and developing your skills. If anybody wants some
guidance, then ACCA's Career Navigator has a number of these roles where you can explore some of
those capabilities. Hopefully, that's given a sense of the opportunity that there is for finance teams in
this planning and performance management cycle. As a reminder to everybody, if you have any
questions or thoughts, observations, don't hesitate to put them in the Q&A area, and we'll pick them up
in a few moments' time, and hopefully give you some more insights as well.

Clive Webb 35:12

But before we do that, let's wrap this discussion part up with asking each one of my panellists for one or
two key observations that they'd like to remind you of in our discussion. And some practical tips about
what you need to think about for the way forwards for your organisations. Melanie, if you wouldn't mind,
I'll start with you.

Melanie Proffitt 35:34

Thank you very much, Clive. We've had a very lively discussion, I think. For me, it's about making sure
that you're looking outside of your financial data. As I've talked about, there's some great insights that
are non-financial. So it's about looking outside of your traditional scope, being agile, and developing a
skillset that allows you to work collaboratively within the organisation, take an interest in the business,
and make yourself accessible and interested such that you can add your extra data and insights to the
information that you're gathering. They would be my quick takeaways.

Clive Webb 36:22

Thank you, Melanie. Matthew.

Matthew Washington 36:25

Thanks, Clive. What I've really enjoyed about this conversation is we've spoken a lot about culture,
mindsets, the soft skills. I think, traditionally, that's not been the finance space. A couple of things. I
think Brian and Melanie both have touched on this – one of the things finance, business partners need
to get used to is being uncomfortable. We've always liked the debits and the credits and the eventual
reconcile, but the reality is the world doesn't reconcile any more. I think we need to be comfortable with
being close enough, not 100% accurate at times. I think that's exceptionally important, especially when
you're looking at performance, forecasting performance management processes, because we don't
have the time any more to get it 100% right. We have to be more agile, we need to be able to be
comfortable with being close enough.

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Matthew Washington 37:17
I think one of the other things we touched on before is having a seat at the table. I think it's incredibly
important for finance to firstly get the seat at the table, and then hold on to it. Now, to get it, it's about
trust and being of use and being practical and adding value. But to hold it, I think we have to have those
soft skills that I think Melanie was speaking about, where we need to be storytellers, investigators,
negotiators, conflict resolvers. Yes, we have to have business acumen, we need to have the
commercials, we need to understand a debit from a credit. But I think it's the soft skills that become
more and more important as we move forward.

Matthew Washington 38:01

Technology and insight. Start dealing with some of the commercial aspects or the more black and white
tangible asset aspects, as the intangibles become more and more important – that just comes down to
our ability to live in the world of being uncomfortable, as I said before. So that'd be my key takeaways
from conversation. So thanks, Clive.

Clive Webb 38:25

Thank you. And Brian.

Brian Furness 38:26

I think it's been pretty much summed up with the last two comments, to be honest. Yeah, all of those
parts are hugely important. What we have done in this conversation is talked an awful lot about the
opportunity for finance, particularly in driving insight, and business partnering, and getting that seat at
the table, and then strategic decision-making. That's one thing, but let's not also lose sight of the other
roles of finance, which are around control and reporting and trust, as Matthew said.

Brian Furness 38:58

And also not lose sight of the fact that you need to do all of that efficiently. If you can operate in an
efficient manner, you can create the capacity, create the space, to do some of these insight activities
we've talked about, to start to explore data, to collaborate more across the organisation, because you're
not constantly under pressure. So thinking about how you can continue to be more efficient and
effective, how you can leverage technology, but definitely investing in those people skills, investing in
the team. And maybe looking outside the traditional areas when you're building a team to make sure
you're getting the right people with skills and behaviours that can work together to take you to this place
we've all talked about. So I'd say focus on being efficient, focus on control, but focus on investment as
well, investing in technology to support the finance team. And investing in the people within it, I think, is
critical.

Clive Webb 39:55

Thank you. Well, hopefully that's given you some insights around planning and performance
management. If you want to explore it in a bit more detail, then I draw your attention to the full report
and the various abstracts that are on the ACCA Global website, and indeed the Chartered Accountants
Australia and New Zealand website too. Please feel free to explore those – there's a lot of guidance
and a lot of real case studies and insights about the whole FP&A and performance management
processes.

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Clive Webb 40:27
That wraps up this main section of our presentation. My thanks to Melanie, to Matthew and to Brian for
their insights. My thanks to you for listening to us. Now it's time for your questions. And I'm delighted
Brian's going to continue to be with us for that element of the session as well. Please feel free to use
the Q&A box and post any questions that you want to us there.

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