Planning is tightly related to CPM, and most BPM/CPM solutions incorporate a planning component. Planning is however more than setting a goal to a metric, it is the process which synchronizes and coordinates the efforts from different parts of the firm. The plans of different functions need to match and reconcile, production planning eg must obviously be in line with sales plans and forecasts.

There are a lot of different types of planning functions within the organization, but at least three are present in each organization, covering operations, revenue and cost. The three together will enable a financial plan.

• Planning will typically be made at different levels of the organization.
• Planning is very workflow-oriented, enabling reviews, revisions and easy, often on-line updates.
• Plans need to be discussed and elaborated in cooperation between functions.
• Functions and issues such as spreading, historical seasonality, etc. are a must. Planning finally needs to be flexible, fast and traceable.

The difficulty to meet all these requirements makes planning often a manual, Excel-based process in many firms. This is of course not optimal, and there are tools and processes available to enhance the situation.

Figures from Best Practices in Planning and Management Reporting by David A. J. Axson

• Average time for annual budget process is 4-5 months.
• Budgeting process takes up 20-30% of managers time
• Finance staffs spend 79% of time on “low-value” activities
• Costly and ineffective
• Cost to budget is 23,000+ person days per $B in revenues
• 60% of firms fail to align actions & strategy.
• Only 20% of firms update budgets within the fiscal cycle.
• Average firms wait 11 days from month end to get reports.

CIS proposes various planning solutions tailored to your needs.