In my years working with finance and supply chain teams, I’ve noticed a recurring theme: CFOs often don’t ask enough questions about planning. While supply chain teams have embraced advanced tools and automation, finance processes are still largely run in Excel. This reliance on spreadsheets is comfortable, but it’s time to challenge the status quo and unlock new opportunities for value creation.
Here are five planning insights I believe every CFO should consider:
Too often, S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) is seen as a supply chain exercise focused on volumes. But true business impact comes when finance is at the table from the start. S&OP should not only forecast volumes, but also integrate prices, discounts, and rolling gross/net sales forecasts. The right S&OP tool can deliver rolling gross margin and working capital forecasts, critical for financial decision-making. Finance’s involvement ensures planning is not just operational, but strategic.
Finance teams face constant pressure on working capital, receivables, payables, and inventory. Inventory, in particular, is complex and difficult to control, yet it represents significant cash tied up in the business. Supply chain planning offers the best visibility into inventory trends, but with a small extra investment in planning, finance can achieve the most reliable working capital forecasts. This is a missed opportunity that sits between finance and planning, waiting to be seized.
Budgeting often involves endless Excel files and multiple iterations across sales, operations, and supply chain. Organizational changes or acquisitions only add complexity. CFOs should ask themselves: “Can I keep doing this in Excel, or is it time for a better planning solution?” Streamlining budget rounds with integrated planning tools reduces negotiation cycles and delivers more realistic, actionable plans.
Traditional S&OP relies on consensus demand, finding a compromise between sales and supply chain forecasts. But compromise isn’t always the best path. Planning is a business decision, not just a sales or supply chain issue. Finance should leverage S&OP to identify opportunities and assess risks, presenting scenarios and discussing risks together with sales and supply chain before making a joint decision. Consensus should come at the end of the process, not the beginning.
Finance’s role is evolving from scorekeeper to business partner. To drive business performance, finance must help business units distinguish between “good” and “bad” complexity, encouraging innovation where it adds value, and challenging it where it erodes margins. By providing clear metrics and education, finance can hold up a mirror to each business unit and support better portfolio decisions.
AI is rapidly changing the finance landscape, especially in forecasting. By linking forecasts to external data and macroeconomic trends, AI enables better long-term and short-term predictions (demand sensing). Automation frees up finance teams to become true business partners, focusing on value-added activities. As one CFO put it, “A better forecast is crucial to gain credibility with investors and to demonstrate control over the business.” In short: AI-driven planning is the next frontier for finance.
Finance is the right hand of the CEO, uniquely positioned to launch company-wide initiatives and inspire change. By embracing these five planning insights, CFOs can move beyond traditional roles, become true business partners, and help their organizations thrive in an increasingly complex world.
Feel free to reach out to me for a one-on-one conversation, or check out my latest book, Rethinking Supply Chain: Build a Strategy-Driven, Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chain, for more in-depth perspectives on the value of collaboration between financial and supply chain planning.
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