Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning In Uncertain Times

APPENDIX II

REQUIREMENTS OF A PLANNING SYSTEM

From a technology point of view, enterprise planning requires a set of integrated capabilities. Integration in this respect means that each function described is available for any data set within the same business model and can be used without limitation in order to support the goal of the system. In the authors’ experience, the following product capabilities are essential.

FLEXIBLE BUSINESS MODEL

A business model is used to describe any data to be collected, modelled, transformed, and reported for the purposes of planning and monitoring performance. The model will hold relationships between departments, products, services, and activities. Data will typically be held in a multi-dimensional form that is also able to support the following:

• Holding a range of data with differing dimensionality. For example, sales may need to be modelled at a customer and product level by region, and a strategic initiative may need to be modelled by activity and date. At some point, all of these different kinds of data with their different levels of granularity will need to be combined to give the full picture.

• Driver-based planning. Planning where entering a few variables, such as sales volume or staff numbers, can generate a range of related data, such as production and staffing costs.

• Time intelligence. As the planning horizon contracts, the ability to model some data at a weekly or even daily level becomes more important.

• The development of ...