FP&ATechnologyTreasury Management
February 14, 2024

Sharpening Treasury’s Strategic Profile Means More Collaboration

Members share the rewards and obstacles of collaborations with FP&A, tech, tax and other functions.Top treasurers are growing into more strategic roles and playing a greater part in decision-making at companies where finance is valued as true partner of the business. The function’s broader profile means treasury teams need to collaborate effectively and frequently with a variety of other functions within the enterprise. Doing that well ultimately pays off, but isn’t always easy. In a recent session of NeuGroup for High Potentials, treasury…
Cash & Working CapitalFP&A
August 3, 2023

Boosting Agility by Increasing Speed in Budgeting and Planning

Balancing act: FP&A must balance a faster budget cycle with business unit accountability and effective targets. Agility is about keeping up with and adjusting to the rapid pace of change in market and business conditions. This flexibility often runs counter to FP&A’s deliberate, typically granular, budget-setting process. At a recent session on agility in annual planning, members of NeuGroup for Heads of FP&A discussed how to balance the need for speed with setting effective performance targets and ensuring business unit-level accountability. Keeping…
Accounting & DisclosureFP&AThe NeuGroup Insights Interview
July 13, 2023

FP&A Drives Finance to a Future of Data and Analytics

Steve Rosvold of CFO.University explores FP&A’s evolving roles and opportunities. At a growing number of NeuGroup member companies, FP&A teams are taking on added importance by becoming a strategic partner of the business, leveraging data analysis skills to provide insights to cross-functional teams across the finance organization. In our newest video, CFO.University founder and chief learning officer Steve Rosvold shares his excitement about FP&A’s expanding role, highlighting how analytical skills can provide finance organizations with a tremendous advantage. Mr. Rosvold foresees FP&A teams playing…
Cash & Working CapitalFP&A
June 1, 2023

Visualize, Itemize, Prioritize: Growing Through Cost Reduction

FP&A at one company supports self-funded strategic investments by “relocating” expenses to growth projects. In this challenging economic environment, many companies are cutting costs. However, depending on how they are executed, budget-tightening efforts can backfire by sabotaging top-line growth. At one NeuGroup member company determined to avoid that, leadership adopted a unique mindset. Instead of making arbitrary or across-the-board cost cuts, it is reassigning or “relocating” expenses to free up funds for growth projects. In 2021, the corporate set ambitious…
FP&ANeuGroup News
May 18, 2023

NeuGroup for Heads of FP&A 2023 H1 Meeting Takeaways

A huge thank you to the FP&A team at General Mills for hosting the May 16-17th meeting of NeuGroup for Heads of FP&A at their Minneapolis headquarters. Thank you to all the peer group members who joined us for dinner and a day full of fascinating discussions, as well as NeuGroup’s very own Andrew Podolsky, Nilly Essaides, and Courtney Royer for making this an exciting and successful event. The #1 topic arising from the session on our projects and priorities was how to transition from a pure P&L focus to building a cash culture, as margins tighten across industries. The challenge for many members is instilling cash…
FP&ATechnology
May 4, 2023

Model Partners: FP&A Helps the Business Plan Through Modeling

In tough times, FP&A is transitioning to a forward-looking stance to support smart business choices. Inflation, anemic growth, market volatility and belt-tightening are top of mind for FP&A leaders. In a recent survey of NeuGroup for Heads of FP&A, members revealed they are putting great emphasis on collaborating with the business. Specifically, they are using modeling and scenario planning to help operational leadership make informed decisions on how to plan for a difficult environment by reducing costs and/or grabbing potential growth…
FP&ANeuGroup ViewpointTechnology
April 13, 2023

The Challenge of Building Agility Into Finance

How finance organizations can become more resilient amid disruption and demands to accommodate rapid changes in the business landscape.By Nilly Essaides Change, of course, is not new. But its speed and velocity have grown exponentially since the start of the pandemic. And its relentlessness is pressuring finance departments to speed up the delivery of data-driven decision-making support to the C-Suite and business leaders. An uncertain economic environment, a cloudy outlook for interest rates and inexorable technological innovation present CFOs and…
Diversity & InclusionFP&AThe NeuGroup Insights Interview
March 2, 2023

A Finance Leader Balances Work, Family and Helping Other Women

In two video clips, General Mills’ Emily Backstrom shares her experience juggling work and family and describes General Mills’ Women Across Finance program. March is Women’s History Month and NeuGroup is recognizing the achievements, challenges and experiences of successful women in finance. Below you’ll find two video clips with insights from Emily Backstrom, vice president for corporate finance at General Mills. She has worked at the company for more than two decades; today, she oversees enterprise FP&A, financial capabilities and systems,…
FP&ATechnologyThe NeuGroup Insights Interview
January 26, 2023

ChatGPT, AI and the Future of Finance: An FP&A Leader’s Vision

Baxter International FP&A head Aaron Bloomer shares insights on how FP&A can lead finance into the digital future. The buzz surrounding the OpenAI tool ChatGPT has highlighted the power of artificial intelligence and the potential for AI to bring the future of finance forward—in ways that will further disrupt and transform finance organizations. That’s the jumping-off point for a lively Strategic Finance Lab podcast conversation between NeuGroup’s Justin Jones and Baxter International vice president of FP&A Aaron Bloomer about AI, advanced analytics and the leading role finance…
FP&ATechnology
January 5, 2023

Outside In: FP&A’s Role in Leading Finance Transformation

After completing finance transformation initiatives at two companies, one NeuGroup member shares keys to success. Accelerating the finance function’s digital transformation is one of the leading priorities for NeuGroup members heading into 2023, as many corporates seek to overhaul outdated, tactical finance organizations and embrace a more strategic, forward-thinking mindset. But where do you start? For Aaron Bloomer, vice president of global FP&A at Baxter International, the answer was simple: FP&A. “I’m a huge advocate of outside-in thinking,” Mr. Bloomer…