- von Genevieve Victor
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Business Planning
Strategic, tactical and operational planning in one system
In many organisations, planning processes are fragmented: departments work with separate tools, spreadsheets and isolated systems. This practice leads to silo thinking, a lack of transparency and inefficient workflows, making it difficult for companies to respond quickly and effectively to market changes. Strategic objectives often risk becoming disconnected from operational and financial activities. The result: wasted time, increased costs, and reduced competitiveness.
Integrated business planning represents a modern approach that unites all strategic, tactical and operational planning processes under one roof, enabling a seamless planning process within a single system landscape. By using modern technologies (SAC, SAP Datasphere, SAP BPC) and unified data sources, transparency is created across all departments. This enables companies to make well-informed decisions, simulate scenarios and allocate resources efficiently, as all departments work from a consistent and transparent data foundation — fostering data democratisation.
From Silos to Synergies: The future of planning is integrated
Modern planning approaches
Act proactively instead of just reacting – with modern planning methods such as simulation, scenario planning, and predictive planning.
Improved collaboration
Departments such as Sales, Production and Finance work in alignment, as their planning processes are seamlessly interconnected.
Strategic alignment
Linking operational planning with strategic planning promotes stronger alignment with the company’s long-term objectives.
Unified data foundation
All departments access a single point of truth, breaking down silos and creating a consistent basis for decision-making.
Faster planning process
By replacing Excel-based sub-plans, the planning process becomes simpler and less error-prone, as all data is consolidated within a central, integrated solution.
Data-Driven decision-making
By democratising data, access to relevant information is made available to all employees across the organisation — laying the foundation for a truly data-driven company.
Planning better together: connecting all planning processes
Cost Center Planning
Cost center planning is a key component of controlling within a company. Its primary purpose is to identify and analyse cost drivers across the organisation. Costs are allocated to specific departments, areas, or processes. Typical planning dimensions include not only the cost center itself but also cost elements, internal orders, or profit centers. Time granularity is usually broken down to the monthly (periodic) level.
Most cost elements are generally planned by the respective cost center managers. However, certain areas — such as personnel cost planning or investment planning — are often treated as separate sub-plans. The results of these sub-plans are then incorporated into the overall cost center planning.
Based on this, budgets can be defined for individual cost centers, and actual costs can be compared with planned values in order to identify variances and initiate cost-optimisation measures. Overall, cost center planning contributes significantly to improving a company’s efficiency and profitability.
Investment and Depreciation Planning
Investment and depreciation planning is a key component of a company’s financial management, aimed at planning long-term capital expenditures and accounting for asset depreciation. Investment planning begins with the assessment of potential investments in assets such as buildings, equipment, or technologies, in order to analyse profitability and long-term benefits for the business. Various financial indicators — such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and payback period — are used to support informed decision-making. At the same time, depreciation planning involves estimating the decrease in value of assets over their useful life, ensuring that costs are appropriately distributed across the relevant fiscal years to maintain financial transparency.
Careful investment and depreciation planning helps safeguard liquidity, minimise tax implications, and support the achievement of long-term corporate objectives.
Sales and Revenue Planning
Sales and revenue planning are essential tools in corporate controlling and overall business planning.Sales planning refers to the forecasting and planning of the quantity of products or services a company intends to sell within a specific period. It is typically based on historical sales data, market research, and other relevant factors such as seasonal trends or economic forecasts. The goal of sales planning is to anticipate customer demand and align production and distribution measures accordingly — helping to meet market needs while optimising inventory levels.
Revenue planning, on the other hand, focuses on estimating the income the company expects to generate from selling its products or services. It is derived from the sales forecasts combined with the planned pricing strategy, including potential discounts. Revenue planning may also consider additional income streams such as upselling, licensing fees, or service revenues.
Accurate revenue planning enables companies to better assess their financial outlook, avoid liquidity bottlenecks, and make informed strategic decisions. Both planning tools are closely linked and form a vital foundation for overall corporate planning.
Project Planning
Project planning is a structured process in which the goals, resources, and steps of a project are defined to ensure its efficient and successful execution. This includes identifying project objectives, defining work packages, allocating resources, setting milestones, and creating a timeline.
A key element within this plan is cost estimation, which involves assessing the projected costs of the project. By considering labour hours, material costs, external services, and other expenses, cost estimation enables realistic budgeting and resource allocation.
Thorough project planning combined with accurate cost estimation lays the foundation for successful project management by minimising risks, maximising profitability, and enabling effective progress monitoring.
Production Planning
Production planning is a critical process in the manufacturing industry that directly impacts a company’s efficiency and profitability. It involves coordinating resources such as labour, machinery, raw materials, and operating equipment to meet production targets and fulfil customer demand.
Key factors such as production capacity, lead times, inventory levels, and quality standards are taken into account to ensure smooth operations and avoid bottlenecks. Effective production planning not only optimises operational workflows but also enables faster responses to market changes and enhances overall competitiveness.
Financial and cash flow planning
Financial and cash flow planning is a core element of financial management, aimed at ensuring the financial stability and health of a company. It involves forecasting revenues, expenses, and liquidity needs over a defined period. Key factors such as sales, costs, investments, credit requirements, and seasonal fluctuations are taken into account to provide a solid basis for financial decision-making.
Careful financial planning enables businesses to identify financial risks, avoid shortfalls, and make strategic investments to achieve long-term goals.
The cash flow aspect of planning focuses specifically on managing the movement of money within the company. This includes forecasting cash inflows and outflows from operating activities, investments, and financing transactions. By analysing cash flow, companies can ensure they have sufficient liquidity to cover operating costs, service debts, pay dividends, and fund planned investments.
Accurate cash flow planning is essential for avoiding financial bottlenecks, maintaining creditworthiness, and securing the company’s overall financial stability.
Workforce Planning
Workforce planning is a vital part of human resource management, aimed at ensuring the right employees with the right skills are available at the right time and place. It involves analysing staffing needs based on company objectives, planning human resources such as labour and skill sets, and developing strategies for recruitment, training, and employee development.
Key considerations include employee performance, turnover, retirement, and market conditions to ensure optimal workforce usage and avoid resource gaps. Effective workforce planning not only maximises productivity and employee performance, but also supports the company’s long-term goals and sustainable growth.
Future-Proof Planning: embrace modern methods for better decisions
Top-Down-Planning
Top-down planning is aligned with a company’s strategic level. Here, management defines the overall direction and objectives using key performance indicators (KPIs). These set clear guidelines that are then translated into sub-plans at departmental levels.
Bottom-Up-Planning
Bottom-up planning starts at the operational level, where department or division managers independently define detailed planning values. These individual plans are reviewed and consolidated at higher levels into a comprehensive concept that aligns with the company’s overall goals and direction.
Driver-Based Planning
Driver-based planning is a strategic approach in which companies forecast future financial results by identifying and analysing key drivers such as sales volume, costs, and market trends. This method enables data-driven strategic decision-making by considering the interplay of various influencing factors.
Monte Carlo Simulation
The Monte Carlo simulation is a quantitative method that helps companies incorporate uncertainty into their planning. It uses random variables and probability distributions to model possible future outcomes. By simulating scenarios repeatedly, businesses can visualise a wide range of potential results and base their strategic decisions on solid, data-driven insights.
Range Planning
Range planning is a highly flexible planning model that companies use to build multiple business scenarios. It allows for the assessment of opportunities and risks by varying factors such as revenue, costs, and market dynamics. This enables companies to react more effectively to unexpected market changes and make well-informed decisions.
Scenario Planning
Scenario planning involves developing various potential future scenarios to understand the impact of different developments. It helps companies prepare for a variety of possibilities and develop flexible strategies. The aim is to reduce uncertainty and enable informed decisions in a rapidly changing environment.
Predicitive Planning
Predictive planning refers to methods and models that provide insights into future developments, including scenario planning, simulation, trend analysis, and rolling forecasts. It uses historical data to identify patterns, based on which the system can automatically generate suggested values. The goal is to forecast future trends and make sound decisions to proactively respond to change.
Business planning - Workshop offers
Are your financial, sales and operational plannings still separated from each other, resulting in a lack of transparency and agility? In this interactive workshop, we measure the maturity level of your business planning.
Duration: 4-8 hours remote or in face-to-face sessions
Based on an initial as-is analysis, we develop a common understanding of the need for integrated business planning and show you how to build a future-proof planning strategy with xP&A.
Duration: up to 8 hours remoteDuration: 8 hours remote or in face-to- face sessions or in face-to-face sessions
In this workshop, we bring clarity to the jungle of planning tools and show you how to implement your xP&A strategy in the best possible technological way. At the end of the workshop, you will have an initial assessment of which software solution is best suited to your company.
Duration: 8 hours remote or in face-to- face sessions
4 Steps to Business Planning: From assessment to implementation and support
References
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With PIKON, we have found an experienced project partner for the modernisation of our data analytics landscape. I am sure that we have made the right decision with the SAP Analytics Cloud, also in order to remain future-proof. We produce considerable amounts of data every day. Good data management is unavoidable these days. With the SAP Cloud solution, we now collect this data centrally and use the insights as a basis for optimised decision-making processes.
Tomislav Tomac
SAP BI/BW Inhouse Consultant, Wörwag Pharma Gmbh & Co. KG
Tomislav Tomac
SAP BI/BW Inhouse Consultant, Wörwag Pharma Gmbh & Co. KG
With the planning application developed by PIKON, we have laid the foundations for mapping our planning transparently and with support from a system.
Holger Zindel
Stellvertretender Leiter Controlling, KVB AG
Holger Zindel
Stellvertretender Leiter Controlling, KVB AG
For us, it is important that we have now been able to establish a consistent, stable and system-supported reporting and planning process at Bertrandt. We were able to do so thanks to the positive collaboration with PIKON. The foundation has been laid for a long-term partnership.
Bertrandt AG - Jörg Schmidt
Bertrandt AG
Bertrandt AG - Jörg Schmidt
Bertrandt AG
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