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Well here we are in May. 2011 seems to be flying by – the year is almost half over, and in the corporate world you know what that means:
Time to start planning for 2012.
This is that time of the year everyone dislikes. For operations and the overall business, it is essentially time away from what they want to focus on, and for the finance teams, it is that time when they find themselves refereeing battles between operations and business for the finite amount of dollars. All in all, this time of the year is where the challenges of the year ahead are discussed, strategized around, and hopefully addressed.
The three distinct groups – business, operations, and finance teams, each play a role in ensuring a successful budgeting and planning season. In the case of the business, each area – whether a business unit, product line or service; needs to have its strategy fully developed by the executive team and communicated to all levels of the business. By doing this, each person – from the lowest level all the way up – will know:
- What the corporate strategy is, going forward,
- How their work will help move the company towards the goal, and
- It will provide management teams the direction in which to plan programs and projects.
By establishing a clear direction across the board, the business will be able to have conversations with the operational areas (such as IT) to make sure that the needs of the business are top priority for everyone.
No Personal Agendas
In my experiences, which have taken place in each of the three distinct areas, one thing has always been paramount to success, “Don’t come to the negotiations with a personal agenda”. The more emotion that is brought to the table, the longer and more drawn out the negotiations become, and feelings are hurt at the end of the process. Many times these feelings carry forward and the working relationships between people, groups and departments can be irreparably harmed. This definitely does not help the long-term growth of a company.
The IT Operations View
In the case of the IT operations groups, this time of year is typically focused on two major things;
- The planning of programs and projects that benefit the business, and
- The planning of the IT organization.
In the case of the second point, IT has to weigh the benefits to the business versus the needs of the IT organization. This means that with a finite amount of budget dollars available, the IT department needs to find the right mix of dollars for the benefit of the business while having enough budget to make sure the IT department is able to do the things it needs to do to ensure the business survives long term. This internal IT spend will likely include: disaster recovery, continued infrastructure modernization, replacement systems for facilities, server and storage growth and refresh, etc. These areas of spend need to be voiced to the business and discussions need to take place at this time of year, at times, the business seems to forget that ongoing operations need to be sustained and this costs money. May and June are critical communication months in the budgeting and planning season. Communicating now means that once the finance team is ready to open the budgeting tool, usually right after the July 4th holiday, the whole budgeting project goes more smoothly.
The Finance Team View
The finance team always hopes for a smooth budget season. Depending on the work they do in these early stages of the process, this smooth season is possible. At this time of the year, the finance team needs to make sure that its message is communicated as well. The finance team needs to make sure that all of the business and operational groups know and understand the process by which the budget will happen, what the key dates are, what the budgeting system will include and what business and operations will need to add to it. These are all very important, the more the business and operational groups understand about what they are responsible to do at this point and throughout the whole budgeting process, the easier it becomes for everyone.
Another area that the finance team needs to be working on at this point is the final testing for its budgeting system. Changes to the system from previous years may have been done due to upgraded equipment and upgrades in software functionality. If a completely new system has been implemented (Hyperion and Cognos-TM1 are the two largest systems currently in use by midsized and large companies), the work becomes even more challenging. Lastly, on the finance side of the budgeting triangle, training the usage of the system must be planned for. All planning sessions need to be calendared, and anyone who will use the system including: cost center managers, department managers, executives and financial representation should be included in the training. (Either a complete training on a new system, or in the case of the use of the same system, a refresher course will be needed as well as complete training for new users.)
Plan Ahead for Success
Just like most endeavors, the more work that is put into the early phases of the annual planning exercise, the easier it become to achieve success. The easier the complete budgeting process is, the less evasive to all areas involved it is. Remember, for most people involved, the budget process is an addition to their “regular” job. Remember, throughout the whole process, nothing is personal, it is all about moving the business forward…the right way. Lastly, there are professionals, like myself, that can help with anything from questions to process and system integration. We are here to help and make your business grow.
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