With the credit crunch biting, costs rising, markets falling, and the spectre of a global recession looming large, business leaders are bracing themselves for even more bad news over the coming months. So it’s not surprising that CFOs in a major new global survey chose “increased accuracy of planning” as their number one priority for performance management over the next two years.

In the same survey, conducted by CFO Europe Research Services and sponsored by Business Objects, an SAP company, the majority of the more than 400 executives surveyed from the US, UK, France and Germany believe integrating operational and financial planning has a major impact on key business goals. Yet, only a fifth of respondents describe their operational and financial planning as “highly integrated”. Why the gap?

In this webcast, you will hear the key results of the survey, including:

• How finance executives still rely on spreadsheets, despite knowing that they are less accurate and more time-consuming.
• Which areas of the business are most integrated with financial planning, and which have a long way to go.
• What your peers think are the most important capabilities of a financial planning tool.
• Differences between US and European performance management goals and priorities.

In addition, you will learn how integrated business planning can increase collaboration across your organization, and how others have increased profitability by more tightly integrating financial and operational planning.

Confirmed speakers:

• Jason Sumner, Research Editor, CFO Europe Research Services
• David Williams, Director, Solution Marketing, Enterprise Performance Management, Business Objects, an SAP company
• Bryan Katis, VP, Enterprise Performance Management RIG and Evangelism, SAP