Integrated Planning, Forecasting, and Budgeting for Organizational Success (PLF4)

Overview

Planning may be one of the most important assignments of the finance professional; however, it is often accomplished in a way that can harm the organization. In many cases, huge sums are spent only to have a planning document developed that does not serve to bring the company together, but rather causes internal division. In some situations the budget can actually harm both productivity and alignment. This course is designed to bring planning, budgeting, and forecasting together into one fully aligned process that is easier, more efficient, and fully engages all parts of the organization. Rather than the plan being owned by the finance department, it is owned and followed by everyone from the CEO to the entry-level employee.

Major Topics:

• The keys that develop a plan into an actionable document
• The major difference between planning and budgeting
• Strategic planning
• The business plan
• The people plan
• The marketing plan
• Capital and technology plans

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how to integrate a budget, strategic plan, and forecast into one system
• See how the integrated plan helps the organization
• Identify how planning causes greater accountability for the company
• Perform various EVA and cash flow analysis in capital planning
• Understand how to make planning more politically acceptable in the organization