Six levers that increase the value of business planning

The planning processes in a company tie up considerable human resources. Accordingly, there is a certain expectation of planning: it should add value and provide the best possible support in achieving the company’s goals. For this reason, the topic of increasing benefits is often high on the agenda when it comes to modernizing business planning. We have identified six levers that companies can use to realize added value for their planning.

Learn more about the six levers and their effects in our whitepaper

Lever #1: Use simulations for deriving scenarios

The permanent use of simulation in all planning processes enables you to derive long- and short-term future scenarios. That will help to foresee unexpected events and to derive immediate counter measures.

Lever #2: Establish a driver-based planning

Driver-based planning clarifies the effects of changed KPIs or changed measures on business performance. This provides companies with answers to “what if” scenarios and can significantly accelerate business decisions in planning processes.

Lever #3: Start with a top-down target setting

Companies should start their planning with relevant KPI discussions at the divisional and functional management level and jointly agree on the desired medium-term business development. This reduces loops and negotiations during operational planning.

Lever #4: Determine change management processes

Adapting planning processes to new and changing business environments requires changes in the behavior of planners and decision makers. These changes must be managed properly to ensure future-proof investments in planning.

Lever #5: Benefit from best practice

Relying on ready-to-use, powerful state-of-the-art solutions, proven processes and concepts, and expert knowledge from numerous comparable projects reduces time-to-value, risk, and planning effort

Lever #6: Add more value to data

Automated analysis of complex data, also in combination with machine learning or artificial intelligence, will enable companies to extract added value from their data and better predict the future. They will no longer just analyze insights, but receive predictions.

Adapting business planning to the new normal

Business planning offers various starting points to increase benefits. An integrated approach is important: Companies must not rely exclusively on intelligent software and innovative technologies. The appropriate strategic, process-related, organizational and content-related substructure is at least as decisive.

Optimizing business planning is an ongoing task. If a company changes its business model, it must also adapt its planning accordingly. Similarly, macroeconomic conditions can have a massive impact on business planning and require adjustments. In view of the current turn of events, companies are faced more than ever with the challenge of rethinking their planning and adapting it to the conditions in the new normal.