AI, Technology & The Modern FP&A Mindset – Insights with Dr. Liran
In this insightful episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst dives into the future of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) with Dr. Liran Edelist, a seasoned expert with over 30 years of experience in finance and technology. The discussion focuses on the importance of modernization, the role of technology, and how FP&A professionals can better align their tools and processes with the needs of the business.
Dr. Liran Edelist, referred to as "The Doctor" by Paul, is a distinguished professional with a PhD in Business Administration. Originally from Israel, Liran now operates out of the Greater Boston area and has extensive experience in consulting, technology, and business leadership. With a career spanning nearly three decades, including a presidency at Jedox Americas and a role as an adjunct professor at Boston University, Liran brings a wealth of knowledge on the intersection of finance, technology, and business processes.
Expect to Learn:
The key components that define modern FP&A and why reducing manual work is crucial.
How to find the right balance between people, processes, and technology in FP&A.
The importance of selecting the right FP&A tools and avoiding common pitfalls during implementation.
Insights into the role of AI in FP&A and how it can act as an additional "pair of hands" rather than a replacement.
The significance of having a modernization mindset and how it can lead to continuous improvement in FP&A processes.
Quotes:
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode
"The great FP&A is a modernized FP&A where you don't have too much manual work." - Dr. Liran
"FP&A should be the front office of the organization, helping lead the business alongside the CEO." - Dr. Liran
"The key to successful FP&A is balancing the right people, processes, and technology." - Dr. Liran
In this episode, Dr. Liran Edelist emphasizes the importance of modernization in FP&A, urging professionals to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement rather than relying on outdated methods. This episode underscores FP&A’s vital role as a strategic partner in guiding organizations toward a more data-driven and forward-thinking future.
Follow Dr. Liran:
Website - https://www.topit.biz/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drliranedelist/
Follow Paul:
Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy
World-class Digital FP&A Course Bundle:
Signup for over ten hours of video content with 4 different courses and 8 modules on FP&A topics including: Business Partnering, Data Analysis, Financial Modeling Design Principles, and Modern Excel. Use code Podcast to save 25%. What are you waiting for signup now: https://bit.ly/4bX9WST
Enroll for Financial Planning & Analysis Certificate Program:
Sign up for the 8 week online financial planning & analysis certificate program by Wharton Online and learn the art of forecasting, analysis, business partnering and financial storytelling: https://bit.ly/4flxfbO Use Code: THEFPAGUY300 to save $300.
Earn Your CPE Credit
For CPE credit please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, and answer a few questions and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode
[01:35] - Introduction to the episode and guest Dr. Liran
[02:57] - What defines great FP&A?
[04:24] - Critical balance between people, processes, and technology
[09:18] - Key considerations for selecting the right FP&A tools
[15:06] - Trends in FP&A technology
[23:32] - The Role of AI in FP&A
[26:00] - FP&A as the front office of organization
[28:46] - The Plan Buddies community
[33:23] - Implementing FP&A tools successfully
[45:27] - Conclusion and closing remarks
Full Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: From your perspective, from where you're sitting, what does great FP&A look like? What is great FP&A?
[00:00:05] Guest: Dr. Liran: The great FP&A is a modernized FP&A where you don't have too much manual work, and you have people that understand the business processes and do whatever they do to serve the best company in the area. I was always seeing the finance as a starting point. I never thought about, okay, here is a solution. Here is something that works better or nicer than Excel.
[00:00:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: How do we as FP&A professionals find the right balance? You hear people process and technology. Obviously technology is expensive.
[00:00:36] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yeah, I think the starting point is people, right? We're human. We want to control the machine. People were thinking about their Excel spreadsheets. They try to make those Excel spreadsheets to become a system, and it's rarely possible. What is exciting me is newer technologies. And when you just see a new product with an old technology, I'm not getting excited. And again, I don't want to give any names, but you know, I was working with cubes almost 30 years ago.
[00:01:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: FP&A guy here. Have you ever wanted to level up your FP&A skills? Then check out the FP&A Guys Ultimate course bundle at thefpandaguy.com. That's the f p and a guy.com and use code podcast to save 25%. Get started learning today. Hello everyone! Welcome to FP&A tomorrow where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis. Each week we're joined by thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy, and I will be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. This week I'm thrilled to welcome on our show The Doctor, also known as Liran. Liran, welcome to the show.
[00:02:12] Guest: Dr. Liran: Hey, Paul. Thank you. Happy to be here.
[00:02:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Probably most of you don't know, but Liran has a PhD, so I refer to him as the doctor. That's where that comes from, knowing that he's much smarter than I am. So a little bit about his background, and then we'll jump into our interview. He comes to us from the greater Boston area. He's originally from Israel. He's currently working for himself and has been for the last a year and a half or so now. Previous to that, he was the president of J docs for the Americas. He has a PhD in business administration, and he's also served a couple different times as an adjunct professor. Currently, I believe Boston University. Right. Yes. And so we're going to start with the same question. We give every guest to start the show off from your perspective, from where you're sitting, what does great FP&A look like? What is great FP&A?
[00:03:06] Guest: Dr. Liran: So I think the great FP&A is a modernized FP&A where you don't have too much manual work and you have people that understand the business processes and do whatever they do to serve the best company. They are in the most modern tools with the most open minds.
[00:03:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Can you give an example when you say like modern tools, what? What do you mean by that? Are you talking like they have a good planning tool? What is a modern kind of FP&A tool set look like?
[00:03:34] Guest: Dr. Liran: I think it's a combination, right? A lot of people are talking today about how do you utilize. I am definitely we're talking about FP&A, EPM tools and even utilization of standard office tools like communication teams and spreadsheets. So it's a combination of everything. But the most important piece around that is to make sure that there are not too much of manual work and people are not spending their time on just crunching numbers when machines can do that for them. And that helps them, you know, to create better insights and then better processes in their organizations.
[00:04:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So it sounds like a key part of any modern FP&A department is going to look great, is really making sure they're offloading the manual work to the machines.
[00:04:19] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes, absolutely. That's part of the modernization that we need in those organizations.
[00:04:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So why don't we have you tell our audience a little bit about yourself, your background and how you ended up where you're at today?
[00:04:31] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yeah. Well, you know, I started doing FP&A at kindergarten. I'm just kidding. It was about almost 30 years ago, but I wasn't at kindergarten at that time. But I was starting with a small consulting firm and the consulting firm I was working for. They had small businesses and, you know, like good handymen that established a shop and later on a running manufacturing plant, and he didn't truly understand finance. So how do you make those people to become a strong business owner with strong finance capabilities as well? So that's where we're starting with a small consulting shop, and I love the ability to see with small businesses the 360 degrees of business. But then I felt that I needed more technology. So I switched to a technology company that provided both a sort of EPM solutions. We used to call that office of the CFO and some business consulting. And after a couple of years, I decided that I needed to come with my own methodologies to the market. So establish my own consulting firm, did performance management, balanced scorecard, budget planning, forecasting, selected a couple of software vendors to work with, and then I merged my company with a by company. I felt it's very accommodating to have business intelligence and planning both together. The company was doubling the size of consulting within about two years. And then we sold the company and one of my software vendor, Jedox, asked me to relocate from Israel to Boston and help them establish the entity here in the US. So that's what they did for about six years. And over the past three years, I've been working with many other type of companies, both in the EPM space and with other very interesting startups.
[00:06:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I know you and I have talked and we'll talk a little bit more about that. You have a lot of different exciting things you do and I appreciate you sharing your background there. I'm curious what's kept you interested in working in technology, particularly? A lot of what you've done in technology obviously has been around the FP&A space. Why the finance space?
[00:06:31] Guest: Dr. Liran: I was always seeing the finance as a starting point. I never thought about, okay, here is a solution. Here is something that works better or nicer than Excel. And that's it. I was always thinking about FP&A as like a secondary to the CEO of the company and help navigating between different processes and inefficiencies in the organization. So finance was a starting point because there is some regulation, okay, you need to have budget. You need to have your finance reports in place. But then, okay, if you really want to understand, if you really want to make impact, you need to understand what's behind numbers. Now technology is helping us to understand what's behind number much better today. And, you know, over my 2 or 3 decades of career, you know, you can see the technology getting better and helps you to do much more effective and efficient processes in a shorter time frame. Get a better insight. So I'm still in the technology because I still believe that there is a lot to do with it.
[00:07:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love that. There's definitely still a lot to do with technology. I would agree with that. And I'm curious, how do we as FP&A professionals find the right balance? You hear people process and technology. Obviously technology is expensive. If it's not done right, it can be a big distraction. What advice do you have about finding that right balance between, you know, your people, your processes and your technology. Any thoughts on that?
[00:07:54] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yeah. I think the starting point is people, right. We're human. We want to control the machine and not the other way. So the starting point is people. And we need to make sure that people understand what technology can do for them. And we want to understand that making sure that people can be good business partners to any persons in the organization. Okay. So people are always the starting point. And we need to make sure we invest in people in the right time. That's actually one of the reasons why we established together planned by this. Right. We wanted to invest in people. The second piece of technology is literally okay. What tools do you use now? I'm a little bit of a handyman, and I always make sure that I have the right tools. What they learn in my home is that, you know, if you really want to make a quick, easy job to fix, you need to have the right tools. Same as, you know, the professional life. So we need to make sure that those people have the right technology that serves them. We don't need to overshoot, we don't need to overshoot, but we need to think about short and long, long term with technology and then the processes. Right. This is what is literally emerging between people and technology. You don't want to implement technology without understanding processes. You don't want people that do not understand the processes in their organization. So that's literally the way the glue between the people and the technology.
[00:09:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes a lot of sense. So I like you said, it's people always first you have to understand your processes and, you know, processes married with the right people and technology enables you to do more.
[00:09:17] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes, absolutely.
[00:09:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: How do you balance when it comes to technology? You see these huge price tags. Sometimes you go, is that really worth it? How do you balance that as a department of thinking? Do I really need this? Would I be better investing in people? Any advice from what you've seen? Being a consultant and I'm sure you've had, you know, many of these conversations of like, hey, that's out of our budget now. How should companies manage that? Any thoughts around that?
[00:09:40] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yeah. Well, I think in our era there are so many technologies around, then I would definitely say that the number one goal is to make sure that the price tag is relevant for the business benefits, and if it's not, then I would advise the customer or a client to find a different technology with the right price tag. I have been working with hundreds of customers and companies, and I do still see, like, you know, a customer reach out to me a couple of weeks ago and mentioned that for a ten user system, they have a vendor that was charging like $100,000 for licenses and another $200,000 for implementation. There is no business benefit around that. Without naming any specific vendor or company. So I would definitely say that's the cases where you need to make sure that the investment is making sense. Now, the other piece of that is that regardless the price tag, assuming that it's relevant for the organization, you need to have the right team to implement the technology, right? It can't be 100% non consultants that will do the work that your internal people and department needs to do. So it's all about balancing and with the variety of options today. Just finding the right one with the right pricing.
[00:10:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I'm curious when you mentioned, you know, the business has to do something. Do you find a lot of times when tools fail, you see that the company didn't do a good job in defining the requirements and really working with consultants and being involved? Or do you think it's typically the implementation consultants or what do you typically see? Because it seems like, you know, you hear a lot about these failures. And what do you think are probably the 1 or 2 biggest kind of failure points, so to speak, in that process.
[00:11:24] Guest: Dr. Liran: So I think there are a couple of them. Probably the first one is that when we are implementing an EPM solution, we need to think about the system and not about Excel. And sometimes it's difficult. So in many cases, people were thinking about their Excel spreadsheets. They tried to make those Excel spreadsheet to become a system, and it's barely possible. And that kind of mindset of, okay, I just need my spreadsheet in the system is one reason sometimes for failure. And the second piece, is the understanding of the business processes and how a system should be evolving. In many cases, you start a small model and then, you know, you keep patching it and not really thinking about that. And at some point you end up with a monster that no one knows how to maintain because some five years ago made kind of strange decisions in a, in an unrevealed code. , so I think that probably the most technical problems that, you know, system was not designed right, or designed to be an Excel spreadsheet. And by nature, there are many cases where companies just didn't choose the right technology. Sometimes it's because of their lack of requirements or, you know, incorrect requirements. And sometimes just because maybe they choose a technology with a nice logo, but not necessarily something with rich fit to their needs.
[00:12:53] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you.
[00:12:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That that all makes a lot of sense to me, and I appreciate what you said there, and particularly the part when you said they just bring their spreadsheet. I just want you to recreate this in your tool. I want to do exactly what I did in Excel, but I need the benefit of your tool. It reminds me almost about 15 years ago now, I worked on a project where we were implementing MicroStrategy, and we took all our Excel files and basically just built them in MicroStrategy, and nobody used them. Nobody liked them. Like, if you're just going to give me my Excel files, just give them to me in Excel because they're easier to use. And it was a learning lesson that you got to change for the form factor that things need to be different often, and there will be benefits to that. And in the long run, you know, they made huge progress on the reporting and it took, you know, a lot longer than planned. But that was a real eye opener when we did, you know, kind of POC and rolled out those first reports and I left the department. But I still remember that conversation with the person who was leading the project of, yeah, we realized we couldn't just it didn't make sense to duplicate what we had in Excel because it works differently. There are benefits of doing it differently, and that increases the likelihood of people using the reports. So I think that's a similar you know, obviously by but I think there's a lot of similarities between that and what we often see in FP&A. So I'm going to ask you a question about selling. Is it true what they say? I always hear, you know, finance professionals are some of the hardest groups to sell to. What's your take on that?
[00:14:17] Guest: Dr. Liran: I don't think it's the hardest team. No, but there might be more sophisticated than others and might be more busy than other type of roles in organizations. So I think it's a combination of, you know, being a sophisticated user with a bunch of needs, as well as being very busy and not always having the right time to deep dive into each and every solution. So I think those are the difficulties. But on the other side, I think once FP&A teams adopt a solution and like it and it will be your best customer because they will keep using it and expand the usage. So I think even if it's a little bit hard to sell, it's great to keep the success running and moving.
[00:14:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There can be a great partnership there and a lot of expansion when done right.
[00:15:03] Guest: Dr. Liran: Absolutely, yes.
[00:15:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We'll see. So I would love to get your thoughts. I know you've consulted with a lot of different CPM tools. You've seen a lot of things in the market, especially since leaving J docs. And just curious, any technology that has you really excited or tools, anything you've seen? You don't have to mention company names if you don't want to. You can if you want. Totally up to you, but anything you've seen that has you excited at this point, or that you look at and think, oh, this could be a really cool use case.
[00:15:30] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes, absolutely. Let's let's start maybe with something that I'm less excited of, and I would not name any company here, but I think that what is exciting me is newer technologies. And when you just see a new product with an old technology, I'm not getting excited. And again, I don't want to to give any names. But you know, I was working with cube so almost 30 years ago and it was like with historical one. And sometimes you see like new tools in the market that are still coming with the same innovative in-memory technology that is with us for a couple of decades already. So the area that excited me more from a technology perspective is literally how you get the data more involved with the organizational data and be more homogeneous together, like, how do we being in a situation that FP&A is not creating a silo, where we now keep saying we don't want a silo organization, but sometimes we build an FP&A technology that remains a silo by itself. So I'm getting more excited with tools that are more natively integrated with already in data warehouses. And, you know, more kind of foundational data in organizations. One of the companies I've seen doing that is lumen. They have a bunch of tools that are doing great planning, systems that are literally allowing you both to manage your BI needs and the planning together in one place.
[00:16:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah.
[00:16:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And speaking of lumen, and I know there's several others. They take an approach of building a tool that allows you to do planning on top of your BI application. Right. I think power BI in this case is primarily what they work with. Do you see that? How do you see that going forward? So not lumen but just in general that idea. I think there's a lot of room for growth there. Not saying it's the only way of course, but it's an area where there could be growth. But what's your thoughts of adding a planning solution on top of power BI, that data warehouse, because you specifically mentioned the challenge of not creating silos and data. So do you see that as an area that we can expect to see grow in the future? How do you think about that?
[00:17:39] Guest: Dr. Liran: I would almost say that with current technologies and power of BI system, rather, you know, you take a Microsoft or snowflake or any of the other vendors in the field. Getting the power of BI isolated from the needs of FP&A is a bit of a problem from a long term perspective. So if you're still spending a lot of the resources of building FP&A solution by taking and extracting data either directly from different sources or from a data warehouse to a silo, it's a problem. And I definitely see an opportunity potentially even to current vendor, which will be very difficult for them, I believe, but definitely for new vendors to say, hey, we don't want to isolate the data that is in our BI system with the data that we're using for planning. And moreover, we don't want to build the interfaces and the maintenance for that. And we definitely don't want to reinvent the integration capacity. If you already have standard tools that are doing that.
[00:18:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: For a guy here today, I want to talk about the FP&A Guys Ultimate FP&A course bundle. This bundle includes over ten hours of content recorded by Ron Monteiro and myself. Many templates and great lessons to make you a better FP&A professional. The content includes FP&A business partnering, how to manage tough conversations, build world class relationships, and hold the business accountable. It includes modern Excel, which is a real game changer for the way you'll work in Excel. Excel tables the gateway to modern Excel. Power Query a game changer for transforming your manual processes and loading data, and then dynamic arrays. Next, we cover modeling design principles. In this course, we talk about the importance of designing models in a certain way and how important it is that you think about design. And last but not least, driving value through smart analysis how you can conduct data analysis to be a better FP&A professional. Go ahead and sign up for this bundle at thefpandaguy.com. That's the f p and a guy.com. Use the code podcast to save 25%. Get started learning today. Yeah, I mean, I can see you're saying, right? If you're doing it all in one tool, recreating it all could be a lot of work.
[00:20:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And so there definitely are benefits the more. And that's why you see more and more tools saying, hey, look, we hook right into your data warehouse, not just by, but general tools. I can name a lot or yes, we'll connect, we'll work with snowflake or some have taken the approach of we'll make sure our data is really easy to export out into power BI or Tableau. They're all finding different ways to try to solve that, because you're right, the last thing you want is a silo of your data. You don't want finance to be on an island with its data or with the business's data because, you know, finance needs sales data, HR data, operational data, ERP and accounting data. But, you know, especially FP&A, it's not like they're just dealing with finance numbers. It's usually company wide data. And you know, it's not efficient to store it in two places. That's why I think we're seeing as much of a convergence as we are between kind of analytics and FP&A in various different forms and factors.
[00:21:12] Guest: Dr. Liran: Absolutely. And maybe another factor to add there is that sort of a recreation of the spreadsheet, I think, that many vendors are trying to say, hey, we have a similar experience like Excel or like spreadsheet. , I would expect vendor to think differently and to say no, we want to create something that is better, right? This is part of the innovation. It's not just about the technology. It's not only about the data integration. It's also about, okay, how a modern user interfaces look like is it really needs to be a spreadsheet, or it could be something that are working better than our beloved spreadsheet.
[00:21:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, it's a great question. It'll be interesting to watch. I mean, the spreadsheet is a fabulous form factor for prototyping, wireframing, many things. One of the biggest weaknesses, and I think this is something I don't think this is something that many FP&A tools are much better at, is the multi-dimensional aspect of modeling, right? A spreadsheet you have rows, columns, and you have sheets. You can get 3 or 4 dimensions. I mean, you could technically get more if you get really complex with your formulas, but in multi-dimensional modeling you can sometimes get, you know, eight, nine, ten levels deep without having to change your formula. It's just a matter of stacking everything in and it spreads it out. You adjust accordingly, and I think that's one of the biggest benefits in now is that, you know, for me, I love the spreadsheet interface, but I also love seeing other things people have done, like visual interfaces and things on top of that, because I agree with you. We don't want to continue to just do the exact same thing with technology. I had somebody say one time, you know, will excel, ever die? And we ask him yes or no? And his response was it should. And what he meant by that. And he was an avid user. He changed thousands of people in Excel. He goes in 20 years, if Excel looks the same, if it's not a completely different tool, we failed because how fast technology is advancing, it should be much better than what we have today. So it wasn't so much excel die or not. It was like the current form should not be what we're using in 20 years. Look at a calculator or a phone or, you know, a computer. Almost none of them look like what they did when they first started.
[00:23:24] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yep.
[00:23:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And so I get what you're saying. I think that's a really good point. And so I wanted to ask you we've talked quite a bit about technology. What's your take on AI in FP&A? I know you've done work with AI and particularly generative AI. So what's your thoughts there? What what are you seeing as the use cases today?
[00:23:41] Guest: Dr. Liran: I think it's an amazing opportunity. That would be maybe the highlight. More and more people would need to learn this technology and to know how and where to implement that. Right. That's there is no question about that. And probably not the first that he's saying that. And I don't see AI replacing any of those FP&A people. I think there is a lot of stuff that the FP&A people would need to do from a process perspective, from understanding. But I believe that it makes it literally the AI adds like additional pair of hands, if not more than that, to every FP&A professional. I did with Ben this a nice workshop for AI, and I showed a couple of examples that AI can help us to. It actually teaches us some new ideas that we never heard about, but we also see so that AI is actually having all the malfunctions that finance needs to fix. It's not really auditable. You don't really know who is responsible for the data, right? So there were a lot of problems with AI that we need to tackle yet. So I think there is a lot of contrast in the AI world. And the FP&A will need to know how to manage those contrast, but definitely use it as another pair of hands, if not another two pairs of hands for the work.
[00:25:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sounds like it's definitely something we should be using. There's opportunities, but we still have things to solve.
[00:25:09] Guest: Dr. Liran: Absolutely yes. But on the other hand, maybe not. On the other hand, I should start now. And the ability to adopt the AI should start, you know, rather sooner than later. For each and every organization, 100% agree.
[00:25:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Every company, every person should
[00:25:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Be playing with it, figuring it out, using it, figuring the use cases, some more than others, depending on your company and what opportunity and access they have. So it's going to vary. But there are I think everybody can get benefit out of it today. I know I've got a ton of benefit out of it. I use it all the time. Right. And so I know there's opportunity and that's what everybody needs to find. If you're just burying your head in the sand, you're missing out, which I'm sure there are some people doing that. But there are also some people that dealt with the calculator and the computer and the internet. They're all just fads, right? Yes. I want to ask a question. You've been a business owner, you know, running your own consulting firm. You've been a president of a company. What do you expect from your finance and FP&A team? What did you always look for?
[00:26:13] Guest: Dr. Liran: To me the FP&A team should be the front office of the organization. We have the concept of front office and back office on investment firms. To me it's a very similar concept. Like this is like the deal desk of the organization for need to think in terms of how do we lead the business, how do we sit not next, but with the CEO and look at data and look at opportunities, examine risks and mitigations, and check the processes and the data that we are having. So I think the most important piece in that perspective, you know, as a business owner, as an executive, you're thinking about FP&A as your front office of the organization.
[00:26:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And what's maybe your favorite memory or favorite thing FP&A has done over the years? You're like, wow, that really impressed me. Something that kind of left you going, I wish all my FP&A people would do that level of work.
[00:27:08] Guest: Dr. Liran: Well, honestly, that was many years ago and I have FP&A team that on top of their, let's say, standard financial roles. They also dealt with the real performance, not the real but classic performance management of organization like balanced scorecards and other. And they were 100% focused on the pillar that many companies are kind of not really observing in the balanced scorecard. And that was the learning and growth. And they actually asked to see how we can implement as part of our budget and forecast processes in the organization, those KPIs of learning and growth within the organization. And I think this was like, you know, super innovative. That was about a decade ago. And I believe that even today, there are not too many FP&A professionals that are really thinking outside of the box, not just let's look at our current processes that the current data, but let's motivate people in the organization to grow and support the organization. Not with the day to day, but with the tomorrow.
[00:28:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love that.
[00:28:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That they were involved in learning and growth and thinking about tomorrow, because you're right, that's often an afterthought. Not not a focus. And so I appreciate you sharing that one. I love that one. I think it's an area we could all do better to think about that within the budgeting. And often it turns into an area of, hey, learning and growth, where can we cut the budget? Not how do we ensure that we have a culture that creates an environment of learning and growth? I mean, I've been guilty of it. We probably every finance person has where they go in and are a good place to cut the budget. But so I really like that because it shows you're thinking holistically and about the company as a whole. Next, I want to ask you about the community you've created. So you started a community called Plan Buddies. Can you tell our audience, why did you start that? How did that come about? And you're smiling, and I probably know why because this involves me. But we'll ask you anyway.
[00:29:01] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes, of course, it's like it's a mutual question, right? We need to ask ourselves that.
[00:29:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yes, but you are the one who started it, not me. You came to me. So that's. You can tell the backstory.
[00:29:10] Guest: Dr. Liran: Okay, so honestly, the backstory is coming back to people right on a day by day basis. I'm usually speaking with dozens of people, and what came to me is that people are looking out for challenges, sometimes as their own problem in their very specific organizations. And sometimes, you know, those people are not really aware of the mutual challenges that we have in the world. And challenges are not necessarily just how do I crunch data or how do I cut cost, or what template should I be using, or what tool? It's literally just sharing like business practices, processes. How do I get the new hires in a better way? And so many other stuff. So Plan Buddies was established first to understand that there are other people with planning challenges that want to learn from each other, and it was focusing really on the human factor. No big brand names, no big company names, not necessarily being sponsored by technology vendors, but literally being able to create a shared
[00:30:11] Guest: Dr. Liran: Knowledge between people and also maybe some friendly relationship with, you know, which never hurts.
[00:30:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it.
[00:30:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you. Thank you for sharing a little bit on that. And what's been your favorite experience with Plan Buddies so far? How's that? How's it been?
[00:30:26] Guest: Dr. Liran: Wow. I actually there are many of it's more than just one favorite. I loved what we did at the opening event when we had the four days with great speakers and hundreds of people joining in and writing comments and jumping from one topic to the other, which is like a typical day, everything all over the place, right? You need to think about your business partners and HR and methodologies and finance and operations. So I think the opening day was one of the greatest experiences. And I think the other piece is literally the one on one conversation with people. I never heard from companies. I never heard the names all around the globe. Right. Not only here in the US. It was amazing to have those one on one conversations, the small groups that we have sometimes and that that was amazing to share the knowledge, to have some fun. You know, the combination of your jokes with some professional materials was all great.
[00:31:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Looking to level up your career and build skills that make you stand out to the hiring managers. How about earning a certificate from a world renowned business school? Wharton Online and Wall Street Prep have partnered to create an eight week online financial planning and analysis certificate program. You'll learn the art of forecasting, analysis, business partnering, and financial storytelling from Wharton Online's world class faculty, coupled with first hand exposure to technical and interpersonal skills with real world applications as practiced in top corporations, space is limited. So level up your career today and use the discount code, THEFPAGUY300, to receive $300 off tuition. That is THEFPAGUY300 to receive $300 off tuition. Learn more by going to wallstreetprep.wharton.upenn.edu/. Yeah, and what Liran's talking about there is we had our opening last January for Plan Buddies, and we brought in ten different speakers. We had about ten different sessions throughout the entire day, back to back with little breaks in between. And we had hundreds of people come in and out, and there were a number of people who joined the community was just a fabulous day of learning from experts, and I hosted a lot of it, told a lot of jokes.
[00:32:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So anyone who knows who's attended any of my webinars has had to deal with my painful Excel jokes. I even bring them into the podcast from time to time. I might have to start a adding a joke section to the podcast. We'll see. But so that's a little bit of that. And if anyone's interested in learning more about Plan Buddies, you can always check us out at Plan buddies.com. We're out there and we'd love to have you join us. But moving on here, I want to ask you one more question till we move to kind of the last set, what I call our standard questions that we have for our guests. So I'm sure we have someone out there who's listening to this episode and they're thinking, ah, I probably should implement a planning tool, but I really don't want to deal with it. Or am I ready? What advice can you offer them? Two parts to this. First, how do they know they're at the point where they should implement a planning tool? And then any advice around going through the process to make sure they have the best chance of success?
[00:33:49] Guest: Dr. Liran: So I think the first question is very simple. I really believe that every company needs a planning tool, whether that's a small enterprise above, of course, a couple of million dollars. If that's an enterprise, a couple of billion dollars, you need the planning tools. It doesn't make sense. You have a counting system, you have CRM system, you have all those systems in place, and you don't have a tool for your front office of the organization. That's your problem, right? So I think FP&A tool is something that every organization wants to have. Crm accounting system and similar supportive system. They need FP&A tool that's checked now.
[00:34:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Excel or Google Sheets is sufficient once you get past a few million.
[00:34:29] Guest: Dr. Liran: No, I definitely don't think so. I think those are productivity tools. They meant to serve individual person. They do have some collaborative features, but those are not systems. They will never be able to become systems. So I don't think it's right to take something and, you know, twist it into something. It is not right. It's almost like, I don't know, putting a coffee ground coffee in a tea bag. Right. You can do that is not the right way of doing it. Probably not. Right.
[00:35:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Not being a coffee or tea drinker. I'll take your word for it.
[00:35:04] Guest: Dr. Liran: Okay, I.
[00:35:05] Guest: Dr. Liran: Have my coffee here. So now for the second question. My methodology of implementation is very straightforward, and I have a couple of rule of thumb for that. The first one is that always take your most difficult and most challenging problem. And the easiest problem to resolve. Right. , a lot of companies are saying, oh, I have like a low hanging fruit that will start with that, but they forget about all the complexity and they ending up with the incorrect tool or the incorrect team or something like that. So try to figure out where you have the most complicated problem. I don't know, could be costing, could be inventory management, a contract management, whatever it is, and could be something more simple like, okay, I just need to consolidate numbers. So take those two problems when you evaluate tools and the next stage is literally starting with baby steps. I am not a great believer of okay, now let's do a $10 million dollar project, hire a bunch of people and tons of consultants and just go with that. I think organizations that are not starting with small and, you know, growing with their tool, with their solution, with the understanding of how technology solves business problem. I think the spending usually a lot of money, and they're getting into the risk that, the system is not really resolving all the problems because it becomes another system. And still people are then exporting the data, you know, from that system to excel to increase their productivity. So it's all about baby steps, taking one model after the other, making sure people in the organization understand the technology and the benefits, and make sure you can start with the tool as soon as possible and not after a year. , if you have to implement a tool for 6 to 12 months, it becomes irrelevant once you know you launch it.
[00:36:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And a lot of truth that if you take too long, by the time you get done, your business models changed and you have a lot of a lot of problems with many tools. All right. So this section is our kind of FP&A rapid fire section so to speak, where we have a couple different questions we ask looking for kind of quick short answers in general here. So the first one is what is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master.
[00:37:19] Guest: Dr. Liran: Understanding data.
[00:37:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like it understanding data. What is the number one soft skill.
[00:37:27] Guest: Dr. Liran: And understanding business business processes.
[00:37:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So we got data and business processes. And then how are you using generative AI yourself today.
[00:37:37] Guest: Dr. Liran: I use it too often I guess. No I'm using it almost everywhere and I'm using it when I need to write emails, blog posts, articles because I'm not a native speaker and that's a really great help. It makes my processes much faster, and I also use it sometimes when I just want to check data correlation And a few other stuff. I'm always double and triple checked, so I never use I without at least double check it. And again, it's not just one check, at least double. If not, triple check the results.
[00:38:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like that it's a it's a good reminder that look check it a couple times. Don't just blindly trust it. I saw sometimes someone put out a post and it said, you know, if you need any changes to this post, let us know. We can rewrite it for you. And that was at the bottom of their post. Like I wonder who wrote that post. They were in a hurry and left in the the AI part at the end of. Do you need any corrections?
[00:38:35] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes.
[00:38:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. Always good to check. I we've all probably done something like that before I know I have. All right. Next one here. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about FP&A. What are you changing?
[00:38:50] Guest: Dr. Liran: Modernization. Modernization mindset. Speak to the future, not to the past.
[00:38:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So elaborate a little bit on that because you didn't say just modernization. You said modernization mindset. What is a modernization mindset?
[00:39:06] Guest: Dr. Liran: So, you know, from for years I was preaching a lot about transformation. And how is it important for finance to make a transformation into the digital era or the AI tools and so on. Now, transformation in many ways failed because it became huge. A lot of people afraid of that. And it became like long enterprise project never ends. And when it ends, it's no longer relevant, right? Yep. So modernization mindset means that okay, let's do the low hanging fruit, but keep doing them over time and not just think about modernization as, you know, a one project that is done. So the modernization mindset. Let's keep looking at what's going on out there. Let's look at our organization. Let's see what resources we can bring together, what technology we can use, and keep evaluating that over time and implement that in in small pieces. Right. Not necessarily everything in one day. And that keeps your for to be current, to be updated, to think, you know, in a modern mindset and not just about, okay, how do I reconcile the numbers from whatever last year?
[00:40:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I really love how you talked about it as a journey. The modernization mindset I've said before, transformation is about more of an evolution. It's not an event which is kind of like modernization. If you're just like, hey, once we get this system in, we're in good place. That's the wrong mindset. And so I really like how you explained that I'm going to I'm going to steal that. Just so you know, I will I will quote you. But I'll still that's how I get all my content. Oh, wait, I shouldn't admit that. All right. This next section is where we get to know you personally a little bit. What's your favorite hobby or passion? What are you doing when you're not working?
[00:40:50] Guest: Dr. Liran: I'm doing a lot. I like to do stuff, though. No, seriously. , so I think my second passion is really teaching. That's why I'm with Bu now. I have passion to make food, especially when my kids like it and they like almost everything I make, not just the cakes. And I like to be outdoors and do hiking and some skiing over winter time. So being active and see the world out there, you know, you got to.
[00:41:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Come to Park City and do some skiing. I've been waiting for that. Yes, I'm gonna put it out there to the world. Everybody ping Liran and tell him to come visit me in Utah. All right. Next. If you could recommend one book to our audience to read, what book are you gonna recommend?
[00:41:30] Guest: Dr. Liran: That's a difficult one. You know, I'm looking right now on my professional side of the book, but I'm also thinking about the science fiction and the mystery book that I'm reading. I have over there my corporate finance, like big one. Let me let me not choose one. But I would say to people read whether that's to inspire your imagination and enjoy a good old book. If you like romance or if you like more actions. I like action and you know, spy stories and that kind of stuff. Or if you read really to learn from professional, I would just say read. I'm, I'm always I always read and I keep reading a lot. So I don't want to just, you know, point on one and, you know, mistreat all the others.
[00:42:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right.
[00:42:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Well, we'll let you get away with that. I tried, but that's fine. No, I, I love the just read because I'm not a big like, business book reader. I mostly read for pleasure. I work, I work so much and do other things. I want to kind of let the imagination go, and that's often why I read a lot. So I, I get it, we're all different. If you can go anywhere in the world tomorrow where you're going, what's your favorite travel destination?
[00:42:40] Guest: Dr. Liran: When I used to live in Israel, my favorite travel destination was here in the US. So I'm now here, and I would say that my favorite, travel destination would be always back to my homeland in Israel.
[00:42:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I thought you were going to say that. I figured that's probably where you go. Makes a lot of sense. And I know you have family coming to visit, so enjoy that. It'll be exciting for you. If you could have dinner with one person alive in the world today, you can take anyone to dinner. Who are you taking to dinner?
[00:43:09] Guest: Dr. Liran: I think it would be maybe Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft.
[00:43:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Why him?
[00:43:15] Guest: Dr. Liran: There are many reasons. Just for a disclosure, I did a very large project with Microsoft, and it was last four years since he was just joining Microsoft until probably most recently. And I've seen how the organization was shifting and changing, not just from the other side, you know, seeing like almost like one of those kinds of old vendors becoming like the most modern company with AI, productivity and cloud solutions. But you've seen the culture in the organization evolving and a lot of other stuff, and I think it would be a fascinating dinner to have and understand about, you know, the mindset of people that makes, you know, such a great work with huge organizations.
[00:43:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, he'd be a great one to have. There's a lot of them that have just done amazing work that would be fun to have dinner with. I think he would be a he would be a cool person to have. All right. So wrap up questions here. We're just coming to the end of our time. If you could offer our audience advice to be a better FP&A business partner. So particularly on the business partnering side, what advice would you give them?
[00:44:21] Guest: Dr. Liran: In one word, it would be storytelling. So I think you need to be a good storytelling. When you come with requirements or when you come with recommendations, you need to think about the story. You need to make sure you know how to convince people with the ideas and explain it. Very good. You need to make sure that the data looks in a way that is resonate for people, and you need to come with all the background stories to lead people towards coverage results. So being a good storytellers will make you a better business partner and much more successful in your journey.
[00:44:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, if we had more time, I'd have you pull out your Kermit the Frog and tell us a story so people could see what it's like, but we'll hold that toward a future episode.
[00:45:03] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes.
[00:45:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Anyone who knows, , around here likes frogs, so we figured that could be a fun storytelling for a future episode.
[00:45:10] Guest: Dr. Liran: But there is a reason behind that, right? It's because they always jump forward.
[00:45:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: They do. So modernization. Always be like a frog. Jump forward, don't get boiled. If you're jumping forward, it's harder to get boiled. See? So we got it covered.
[00:45:25] Guest: Dr. Liran: Yes, absolutely.
[00:45:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. If someone wants to get a hold of you or learn more about you, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:45:32] Guest: Dr. Liran: Linkedin check my name's it's a very unique name, Liran Edelist. And I'm very responsive. I'm usually very responsive.
[00:45:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So yeah, there's not many Liran Edelist out there. Not especially with the PhD. That's a doctor. So thank you so much for joining me. I really enjoyed chatting with you today, Liran, and excited for audience to get to know a little bit about you and you know, all the great work you're doing out there in the tech space. So thanks again.
[00:46:00] Guest: Dr. Liran: Thank you. It was my own pleasure. So thank you.
[00:46:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me, the show host for further details.