Visit our website for live webinars and events! http://www.sonum-int.com We learn most out of the mistakes we make and the things that go wrong. During this webinar we will discuss the 7 key items/pitfalls that have the biggest impact on your project and its result. With years of experience in implementing planning & budgeting tools, Maud Vermeulen will tell you the do’s and don’ts with reference to several business examples.

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7 ways to frustrate your budgeting project

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Agenda
•Introduction
•7 effective ways
•Lessons learned
•Questions

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Introduction
Maud Vermeulen
•Over 14 years of international experience in the field of
Planning & Budgeting
•Excited about integrated planning & driver based planning
•Founder of Sonum
Sonum International
•Is a niche consultancy firm
•Focus on Planning & Budgeting and Profitability Management
•Combines business expertise with IT know-how
•Makes budgeting truly value adding

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1. Stay vague about the expectations
• Make the client responsible for specifying the requirements
• And expect a miracle to happen
The alternatives:
•Describe the key requirements, get to the
details and agree on them at the beginning of
the project. It is a difficult job but better get
over it
•It is the only way to measure and evaluate
the result, but make sure to keep it pragmatic
•Make defining the requirements a joint effort
vs asking the client to set up the
requirements (= hoping they will never get
there)
•Be realistic in your expectations

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Experience Planning & Budgeting Adoption Curve
time
Technology Peak of inflated Trough of Slope of Plateau of
Trigger expectations Disillusionment Enlightenment Productivity

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2. Take your time
• This is enforced by big teams, starting all from day one on
• Big projects = big problems
The alternatives:
•Split the project in smaller sub-projects  starting with a template model or a
financial model gives the possibility to create even better models in phase 2 of
the project
•Another advantage of smaller projects: Not everything can be done in a short
time frame, so focus is enforced by short time lines
•Review progress on a weekly basis: keep time lines tight and short
•Assign the specific knowledge to the project at the right moment

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2. Take your time
• This is enforced by big teams, starting all from day one on
• Big projects = big problems

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3. Lock each other in a fixed price
• Even more effective if everybody in the company is aware that it is a fixed
price and starts acting accordingly  we don’t care let them do it again
• Makes sure the full budget is used even if it wasn’t needed
• Makes sure a lot of time is spend on fighting over out of scope items that need
additional funding
The alternatives:
• Engage in the project as business partners and build up a relationship
• Share the same goal
• Be open about your interests
• Dare to trust

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4. Let IT or Finance own the project
• And act as if the business doesn’t understand enough about budgeting and
planning to take the right decisions
• Let IT handle it as an ERP implementation

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4. Let IT or Finance own the project
• And act as if the business doesn’t understand enough about budgeting and
planning to take the right decisions
• Let IT handle it as an ERP implementation
Development
Test
Acceptance
Production
Disaster Recovery

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4. Let IT or Finance own the project
• And act as if the business doesn’t understand enough about budgeting and
planning to take the right decisions
• Let IT handle it as an ERP implementation
The alternatives:
•Involve the business from the beginning, the processes within the business are
extremely important for an integrated model
•Focus on the knowledge of the different people involved
•Make sure it serves the business in reaching their goal

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5. Avoid prototypes until all is documented
• Have the blue prints written preferably by a senior consultant that doesn’t
know the tooling
• And without describing who is responsible for what
The alternatives:
•Design is very important, so is showing the impact of certain choices via
prototypes  start prototyping from the beginning of the project
•Make sure the people responsible for the blueprints have extensive experience
with the software selected to support the process
•Finalize the design document after there is agreement on the prototypes

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6. More detail = More insight
• Too much detail means too much time spent on items not being significant
and too little time on the items that drive your business and in need of
attention.
Corporate
Transactional consolidation
data
Planning
Solution
Data sources Reporting
requirements

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6. More detail = More insight
• Too much detail means too much time spent on items not being significant
and too little time on the items that drive your business and in need of
attention.
The alternatives:
• There are areas where more detail is needed than you can find in the GL, this
often has to do with the sales, COGS, investments, etc
• Make sure reference data is available
• Budget on items you want to make decisions on, keep the rest on an
aggregated level

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7. Create drivers for each and every account
• Drivers aren’t linked: P*Q = AMOUNT
• Zero based is the way to go
• One size fits all
Sales
volumes & Inventory  Production Distance
Sales prices Recipes price per KM

Material
Prices
Gross


Revenue
Transport
Discounts Material Cost
Cost



Net Revenue  Brand Profitability

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7. Create drivers for each and every account
• Drivers aren’t linked: P*Q = AMOUNT
• Zero based is the way to go
• One size fits all
The alternatives:
• Integrated means that there are similar interdependencies in the model as in
the business and that planning information is shared across the different
functions
• Forget about creating drivers for each and every account, it will increase the
use of Excel  focus on most important business drivers
• Provide reference data, also on drivers

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Lesson learned
• Signed off requirements
• Short Time Lines
• Engage as business partners
• Business a major role
• Prototyping
• Level of detail
• Integrated Business Planning

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Thank you!
www.sonum-int.com
maud.vermeulen@sonum-int.com
@sonum_int