Paul Barnhurst says FP&A teams waste 80% of their time on processing, models, and reporting instead of analyzing and partnering with the business. He argues for flipping it: automate the routine work so you can spend most of your time on strategy and helping the business prepare for what's next.
I really appreciate the 8020 rule. I can tell you what a not good FP&A team functions and it's where they spend 80% of their time tinkering with the machine of FP&A. Like your models, your Excel files, your reporting, just kind of like gathering information about what happened and then you've got 20% left scrambling to try to do the work. So if you flip that and you've got an actual well oiled machine, they should be spending about 20% of their time doing the normal work, letting the machine crank out the things that need to be cranked out. And then the remaining 80% of your time really laser focused on digesting what happened so that you can be a good partner with the business and help them prepare for where you're headed.
Trust and Leadership Lessons for FP&A From 100+ Top Leaders with CFO Jon Laudie
