Agility and foresight have never been more critical as management accountants need to provide strategic insights, anticipate market shifts, and deliver actionable recommendations to move organisations forward.
Adaptive budgeting and planning strategies allow real-time responsiveness to market fluctuations and emerging trends. It enables organisations to make adjustments based on changing market conditions, rather than relying on historical data. The shift from reactive to proactive planning is crucial as businesses navigate an economic environment marked by volatility and uncertainty.
In this episode of the “Reshaping Finance” podcast, Eric Kinnoin, senior vice president of finance at Oracle, and David Bogard, senior director of finance at Oracle, share key perspectives on adaptive budgeting and planning. They provide insights on building resilience and adaptability within your organisation in the face of economic uncertainties.
Progressing from traditional budgeting to adaptive practices allows organisations to make adjustments based on changing business conditions rather than relying on historical data.
With the right tools, management accountants can strengthen decision-making processes, improve financial forecasting, and enable their organisations to respond more effectively to market fluctuations, ultimately driving better business performance.
Agility is crucial in adaptive budgeting and planning
Adaptive budgeting and planning mean organisations can move from traditional forecasting methods that rely on historical performance to a more dynamic approach that anticipates future trends and enables businesses to adapt and react quickly to changes.
‘When I think of the concept of adaptive budgeting and planning, it relates to how nimble we are as a function and how forward-thinking we can be to both anticipate as well as react quickly to changes,’ Kinnoin noted.
The current macroeconomic landscape reinforces the criticality of adaptive budgeting and planning. According to Bogard, businesses must move beyond Excel and let cutting-edge tools like IPM Insights and Fusion Anomaly Detection do the heavy lifting.
A key question to ask, whether concerning tariffs, macroeconomic uncertainty, or geopolitical instability, is, ‘How do you do scenario modelling dynamically so that it's not a static process, but a living, breathing exercise that you're doing at all times?’ Kinnoin said.
When organisations follow a rigid planning process, such as setting a budget and leaving it unchanged for an entire year, without the proper instrumentation, planning tools, or processes to consider how to respond to unexpected shocks, they can end up in a precarious position.
‘If everything is done on a reactive, ad hoc, heavy Excel, heavy manual approach, it's really hard to get in front of things,’ Kinnoin said.
Managing an official budget in an era of constantly changing targets and plans means that finance professionals must proactively use real-time data to inform recommendations and decisions.
‘The ability throughout the year to navigate which lines of business are better or worse than you expected, what new trends come up that you're capitalising on that you didn’t have before, and what headwinds you have that you couldn't anticipate, is critical,’ Kinnoin emphasised.
‘I think the ability to navigate those [challenges] in a nimble fashion throughout the year, realising that the budget you set at the beginning is what you're charting to, is of critical importance,’ he said.
Key tools that enable adaptive budgeting
Machine learning and automation are a crucial part of adaptive budgeting, allowing finance teams to quickly adjust forecasts, streamline reporting, and respond more accurately to changing business conditions.
As a leader in consolidation, compensation, and transformation at Oracle, Bogard drives initiatives across various finance teams to standardise reporting, generate actionable insights, and boost productivity.
He has recently taken the lead in adopting new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, emphasising the role of automation and machine learning in enhancing budgeting and planning processes.
‘The tools that we have seen that are really adding a lot of additional insights and efficiency are what I would call machine learning automation,’ Bogard said. ‘These are your robotics process automations, which take a lot of very critical tasks that are a little bit monotonous in nature but repeatable. And you teach the automation tool robot to perform it for you.’
Organisations can save hours of manual work by automating repetitive tasks such as downloading and summarising reports, and sending emails.
Shifting to automating routine tasks enables finance teams to spend more time generating insights rather than being caught up in manual processes.
Bogard highlighted how Oracle has embedded more advanced capabilities into its product stack, including IPM Insights and Fusion Anomaly Detection, saying, ‘Oracle being a Fortune 500 company, we have lots and lots of transactions daily. And so, it's very difficult for an analyst to look at all these transactions to see what might be an issue, both on the accounting and finance side,’ he shared.
These tools help surface potential problems automatically, empowering teams to act faster and more confidently.
Kinnoin and Bogard both stressed the importance of embracing new technologies, such as AI, to make budgeting and forecasting more adaptive.
By integrating automation and AI-driven insights, finance teams can standardise reporting, identify trends and risks earlier, and support their organisations through constant change.
As companies increasingly rely on data-driven insights, the ability to pivot and respond with agility will be crucial for organisational growth.
Listen to the full episode of the “Reshaping Finance” podcast to hear more about how Oracle leverages AI and automation.
Additional resources from the Future of Finance 2.0 research:
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