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FP&A strategy challenge - Apliqo Intelligent Analytics and Planning

Your strategy is not linked to your financial planning.

Company strategy can be a fickle thing. As leaders, you’re charged with setting the direction of your organization and clarifying how you’re going to go about getting there. This leads to a lot of boardroom sessions, brainstorming, market research, and a carefully crafted plan that lays out how you’re going to achieve your stated objectives.

Your strategy is not linked to your financial planning

Company strategy can be a fickle thing. As leaders, you’re charged with setting the direction of your organization and clarifying how you’re going to go about getting there. This leads to a lot of boardroom sessions, brainstorming, market research, and a carefully crafted plan that lays out how you’re going to achieve your stated objectives.

But that’s the easy part.

Why does this happen?

Too often, that strategic thinking lives and dies in those boardrooms and doesn’t actually make its way to those on the ground. The message gets diluted, the incentives get blurred, and without realizing it – you find that everyone is pulling in different directions. Your strategic direction isn’t actually informing how your company is operating. There’s a strategic mismatch.

Typically, this mismatch happens because there isn’t alignment between the strategic imperatives and the actual performance management in all your various silos. No matter how many times you re-iterate a company mission or vision statement, the truth is that people follow incentives. As such, when your financial planning, measurement, and remuneration are not directly linked to what you’re trying to achieve strategically, you find that the wires get crossed.

This makes it incredibly difficult to make progress on long-term goals, or even to understand how your strategy is performing in the marketplace. As a result, you’re left with no clarity as to what’s working, what isn’t, and what can be changed to alter the direction.

It renders a lot of the hard work irrelevant and doesn’t allow for true strategic maneuvering.

Why does this

happen?

Too often, that strategic thinking lives and dies in those boardrooms and doesn’t actually make its way to those on the ground. The message gets diluted, the incentives get blurred, and without realizing it – you find that everyone is pulling in different directions. Your strategic direction isn’t actually informing how your company is operating. There’s a strategic mismatch.

Typically, this mismatch happens because there isn’t alignment between the strategic imperatives and the actual performance management in all your various silos. No matter how many times you re-iterate a company mission or vision statement, the truth is that people follow incentives. As such, when your financial planning, measurement, and remuneration are not directly linked to what you’re trying to achieve strategically, you find that the wires get crossed.

This makes it incredibly difficult to make progress on long-term goals, or even to understand how your strategy is performing in the marketplace. As a result, you’re left with no clarity as to what’s working, what isn’t, and what can be changed to alter the direction.

It renders a lot of the hard work irrelevant and doesn’t allow for true strategic maneuvering.

How do you align your strategic and financial planning?

Alignment is only possible when you’re using the right tools to scale holistic planning across your organization. Apliqo is built for exactly this purpose. It’s a feature-rich planning and analytics platform that is dedicated to bringing together your strategic and financial planning into the same universe.

By leveraging the analytics capabilities within the software, you can achieve alignment of objectives across a complex and fast-moving ecosystem.

It’s not just a software platform.

It’s a philosophy and methodology for running a firm that can effortlessly link both long-term and short-term objectives; financial and operational ones.

Once you realize the power of such alignment, you’ll never go back.

How do you align your

strategic and financial planning?

Alignment is only possible when you’re using the right tools to scale holistic planning across your organization. Apliqo is built for exactly this purpose. It’s a feature-rich planning and analytics platform that is dedicated to bringing together your strategic and financial planning into the same universe.

By leveraging the analytics capabilities within the software, you can achieve alignment of objectives across a complex and fast-moving ecosystem.

It’s not just a software platform.

It’s a philosophy and methodology for running a firm that can effortlessly link both long-term and short-term objectives; financial and operational ones.

Once you realize the power of such alignment, you’ll never go back.

If you're struggling with mismatched objectives and planning, now is the time to try Apliqo.

Get in touch today and let’s see how we can help you craft a more holistic planning environment for you organisation.

Faber Castell logo
Ardex logo
Häfele logo

We’re proud to have helped these companies plan better.

If you're struggling with mismatched objectives and planning, now is the time to try Apliqo.

Get in touch today and let’s see how we can help you craft a more holistic planning environment for your organisation.

Faber Castell logo
Häfele logo
Ardex logo

We’re proud to have helped these companies plan better.

Recent articles from

the Apliqo FP&A blog

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Financial Health Check: How to prepare your Q1 diagnosis

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Variance Analysis — Its art and science

Variance analysis is both a technical discipline and a nuanced craft. In the world of FP&A, it is the process of comparing planned outcomes with actual results, identifying discrepancies, and uncovering the underlying causes. While the scientific aspect involves quantitative methods and precise calculations, the art lies in interpreting these figures in context and making judgements that drive strategic decisions.

Read this article
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Recent articles from the Apliqo FP&A blog

Leveraging Alternative Data

Leveraging alternative data: transforming FP&A with non-traditional insights

This article explores how financial planning and analysis (FP&A) professionals can leverage alternative data sources — such as social media sentiment, satellite imagery, web scraping, and geolocation data — to enhance traditional financial metrics and gain competitive advantages. Through a retail case study, technological enablers like AI and real-time analytics, and practical implementation strategies, the article demonstrates how non-traditional insights can transform financial forecasting, improve decision-making agility, and help organisations navigate market uncertainties despite integration challenges.

Read More »