The ultimate guide for integrated business planning

The classic financial planning approach is organized by function and linear. Each team functions in a silo with its own process. Consequently, a lot of time is spent putting the pieces of “the big picture” together.

How can organizations eliminate these silos and achieve the adaptability and resilience required to act decisively in turbulent times? And what is the best path to collaborative financial planning that enables confident decision-making?
This is where integrated business planning (IBP) comes in.

IBP connects finance, sales, HR, operations, and supply chain, integrating all the data that matters from across the organization. This helps eliminate traditional barriers, bridge performance management gaps, and adds richer context to the numbers. IBP delivers a more complete picture of an organization and its performance, giving teams the exhilarating feeling of working smarter, collaborating better, and hitting the mark.

Moving from siloed planning to IBP helps individuals and teams across departments collaborate using a single, unified platform, so even the most complex businesses can accomplish straightforward planning. This allows departments to uncover opportunities, discover gaps in the business landscape, and develop a range of scenarios.
The result is better decisions and better insights across the organization.

Moving from siloed departments and disparate systems to integrated planning eliminates inconsistent reports and forecasts, which contribute to a lack of transparency and duplicated efforts. IBP makes such a difference because it enables teams to unify their financial and operational planning processes within a single platform. IBP solutions, such as Jedox, deliver exactly that: unified, cross-organizational data and seamless data integration with existing enterprise systems in the cloud or on premise, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and Oracle.

In today’s digital-first, hybridized environment, traditional quarterly planning is insufficient to support the increased need for adaptability and resilience. Enterprises must be able to pivot quickly as data volumes continue to increase and global issues persist, including uncertain local and global markets, supply chain disruption, and fierce competition. Simplified, adaptable planning is how you get there.

Adaptable, quick decision-making has never been more vital. If financial, operational, and strategic teams do not have the ability to immediately orchestrate and match their actions to dynamic markets, they cannot keep pace.

That’s why it is critical that planning solutions deliver cross-organizational, collaborative, and straightforward planning that mirrors the contours of a business through artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies. That can only happen if an organization’s people, planning, processes, and data are unified in one single solution. Jedox, the world’s most adaptable planning and performance management platform, integrates data from any source and across all business systems to create a unified plan and single source with all the data that matters.

“The increase in efficiency from planning alone is really great! What used to take several hours is done in seconds with Jedox.”

Head of Controlling, Fiat

Many different systems and solutions can be combined and integrated with Jedox, including finance, sales, marketing, HR, procurement, and more.

“With Jedox, it’s one set version of the truth that can be viewed in different ways. It’s the same data being used consistently across the organization.”

Transformation Director, GWA Group Limited

Jedox is a planning and performance management software that integrates all the data that matters into a unified platform. Expert at interfacing with systems where data is stored, Jedox eliminates silos and delivers a holistic plan that drives decisive planning. Users quickly grasp how sales operations, workforce plans, and other activities impact the bottom line and make collaborative, real-time adjustments to meet corporate objectives.

“Jedox is a flexible solution, not as heavy and unwieldy as other systems in the market. Jedox is also a very fast system, which updates quickly in our data warehouse, so that data is always fresh.”

Finance Manager, Kvadrat

Understanding the benefits and capabilities of IBP when evaluating solutions is vital to maximize the long-term value of the investment.

Ultimately, integrating strategic, financial, and operational planning and performance management should lead to more accurate and simplified plans, forecasts, and performance tracking. Different teams should have the ability to create their own reports and analysis functions or combine data in virtually any way that makes sense for them – seamlessly and autonomously. Ask the following six questions to determine the best solution:

Built to adapt with any organization and any type of enterprise, teams can start reaping the rewards of IBP solutions like Jedox at any point in their digital transformation journey. Whether an enterprise needs new business sectors, data sources, or models, they can be added anytime.

Teams can also get started with AI easily. The embedded Jedox AIssisted™ planning wizards enable teams to integrate different data from formerly disparate systems whenever they are ready. Users immediately start reaping the benefits of quickly identifying the internal and external drivers that have the greatest impact on the business.

Every organization and every business model is different. Jedox is recognized by independent analysts worldwide for its ability to model any scenario, integrate data from any source, and simplify cross-organizational plans across all business systems. This enables a culture of decisiveness and confidence so any team in any organization can plan for opportunities, react quickly to changes, and uncover what they didn’t know was possible.