Budgeting and Forecasting: Tools to Achieve Your Strategic Goals

You have a vision and goals in mind for your business as you look ahead to the coming year. However, you won’t get very far without a solid plan. To meet your strategic objectives and reach your financial targets, you will need a long-term strategic plan, mid-term budget, and short-term initiatives that are aligned to your overall strategy.

In other words, you need effective planning, budgeting and forecasting. Together, these three pillars of performance management can become a powerful strategic tool that provides guidance, improves transparency, increases accountability and strengthens the performance culture of your organization.

Budgeting and forecasting can help you to:

• Act proactively by developing an integrated financial plan that forecasts and reconciles demand, supply, and operational performance based on shareholder objectives
• Track performance by developing a dynamic financial model (income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement) that allows variance analysis of budgeted versus actual performance
• Improve transparency and accountability by drilling-down operational goals across different business units, products, and customers

Strategic planning can help you to:

• Define and quantify overall goals and objectives at different time horizons to meet shareholder performance needs
• Provide guidance for the allocation of resources by developing a tactical roadmap to maximize the value of your business based on ongoing performance objectives
• Monitor and manage performance by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure in real time
• Address organizational weaknesses to implement growth and/or transition strategies

Your management team may be well-suited to run your organization, day in and day out. But they may not have all of the specific skills and experience needed to evaluate and anticipate headwinds impacting your performance as well as to develop a detailed, thorough response to address them. A dedicated business consultant with experience in planning, budgeting and forecasting can help you maximize the value of your business and realize your vision.

Have you ever wondered how far your business could go if it had a roadmap for success and the resources to get there? Contact me or another member of Kaufman Rossin’s business consulting services team to learn more about how effective planning, budgeting and forecasting can help you take your business where you want it to go and beyond.