Are you communicating effectively in your budget process?There are three parts to communication. There’s the telling part, which is often done through email or phone call. Sending the message. Then there’s the receiving part – the person actually read the email or reviewed the document or listened to the voicemail, whatever. These two parts are easy compared to the last part. In… Read More |
Is Budgeting driven more by politics than by strategy?A while back The Buttonwood Group and CFO Magazine conducted a reader survey on budgeting and planning and the results are disturbing to look at. I’d like to find out if these results would apply to your organization or not: 2/3 of readers surveyed said their planning process was driven more by Politics than by… Read More |
Why do we budget anyway? What’s the point?Have you ever stepped back and asked yourself, “Why do we go through this budget process anyway? What’s the point?” I remember being in the throws of the budget process at Reader’s Digest, where I managed the process for North America, and asking myself that question a lot. True confessions… in my most cynical moments,… Read More |
Budgeting is as much a communication process as it is a financial oneI remember when I was a Financial Analyst at Pepsi, being at the office late at night during the budget cycle, crunching the numbers and hoping that they’d add up right and tie out. Frankly, if you had wanted to talk to me about the communication side of budgeting I would have shown you the… Read More |
Is Your Budget Process "Strategic?"I’m interested in hearing if you think your current budgeting process is strategic. If it is, why do you think so, and if not, what is causing the gap? |
A Failing City Calls in the Budget DoctorEvery once in a while I come across a podcast that I think is illuminating – makes a point but does so in a clever or revealing way. I found one the other day and wanted to share it. A Failing City Calls in the Budget Doctor http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=134430495&m=134431356 It’s only about five minutes, but you’ll… Read More |
Distributed BudgetingAt XLerant, we’re changing how budgeting is done… and who’s doing it Our clients use our flagship application, called BudgetPak, to distribute budgeting to the people driving the actual results. To understand why, read on. Who does the budget in your company? Chances are it’s the Finance department. Who drives the actual results of the… Read More |
Overcoming the Twin Traps of Impact Bias and FocalismIn a previous blog we talked about how Impact Bias and Focalism and lead to some really bad decisions. In a nutshell, the problem is we so focus on our personal needs when it come to business decisions — like what budgeting system to buy – that our perceptions get distorted. Like a fun house… Read More |
Changing the face of budgetingI hate the word paradigm, don’t you? It’s been so over used, it hardly seems to have any real meaning left. But in fact it does have meaning — “A framework of understanding; a mindset based on a set of precepts.” The paradigm (don’t cringe) most of us have when it comes to corporate budgeting… Read More |
Getting the story behind the numbersWhen I worked at Pepsi as a FP&A Manager it was drilled into our heads that our job was to “get the story behind the numbers” and be able to communicate that story intelligently. But what does getting the story behind the numbers really mean? The report that almost every finance organization runs each month… Read More |
