How FP&A and Product Management Work Together for Market Success
Show Notes
Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, where we discuss financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects, with your host Paul Barnhurst.
The title sponsor for this week’s episode of FP&A Tomorrow is Abacum, the leading mid-market FP&A solution trusted by hundreds of companies to eliminate the spreadsheet struggle. https://www.abacum.io
In today’s episode, Paul engages in a conversation all about how FP&A and product can work together with three awesome guests Dara Goroff, Urvi Kapadia, and Navya Rehani Gupta.
Dara, VP at I-CAR, leads education and credentialing for collision repair, known for innovative problem-solving in product management.
Urvi, an FP&A Manager at NetDocuments, combines accounting and FP&A expertise to support tech ops and product teams. With experience across diverse industries, she focuses on strategic finance partnerships.
Navya, Chief Product Officer at Peak, excels in product management, design, and analytics, leveraging a diverse background in engineering, finance, and entertainment to enhance customer experiences.
Key takeaways from this week's episode include:
Here is a concise summary of the key points from the discussion:
Good FP&A partnership with product involves seeing the "art of the possible", collaborating closely on pricing/bundling, and having FP&A understand the product value proposition and customers.
Common challenges often include headcount/budget negotiations, risk aversion from finance, and short deadlines to provide information.
FP&A providing strategic insights beyond just the numbers is highly valued by product leaders.
Being involved early in the planning process and helping expose new growth opportunities is ideal.
The week's discussion provided actionable insights for both product and FP&A professionals to build strong, productive partnerships.
Quotes:
Here are some relevant quotes from the episode about FP&A and product working together effectively:
"I think it is delightful when my FP&A leadership also feels a really strong affinity to my customer because everything you do on the product side is to position your company to delight your customer…"
- Dara Goroff
"Good partnership includes product and finance being aligned on what that future is, and FP&A asking the right questions. They're asking the five whys, and they're walking hand in hand, and the momentum that product team is building is actually in the right direction."
- Navya Rehani Gupta
“All FP&A professionals are risk averse. That's the nature of the job, that's why we are in FP&A."
- Urvi Kapadia
In today’s episode:
(01:53) Introduction;
(03:47) Partnering with FP&A;
(10:00) Guest background;
(14:56) Role of a product manager;
(29:22) Biggest challenges working with a product from a financial perspective;
(41:01) What makes a great partner to work with;
(42:48) Rapid fire;
(49:46) Get to know our guests personally;
Follow Urvi:
Follow Dara:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dara-goroff
Follow Navya:
LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/ /navyarehani
Follow Paul:
Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy
For CPE credit please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, and answer a few questions. For AFP FPAC certification answer the questions and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
Full Show Transcript:
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Abacum is the leading mid-market FP&A solution trusted by hundreds of companies to eliminate the spreadsheet struggle. Visit Abacum.io today and multiply the impact of your finance team.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, a brand new podcast where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy, and I will be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Every week we are joined by thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your journey in FP&A, this show has something for everyone. Before we introduce this week's guests, I want to give a special thanks to our title sponsor for this episode, Abacum, whose support makes this episode possible. So now let's dive into the show. I'm thrilled to welcome three guests with me today. We have Dara, Urvi and Navya here with me today, and we'll give each of them a chance to just say hi. Dara!
Guest: Dara Goroff:: Hello, everyone, and thank you for having me, Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thank you for joining me, Navya.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Hi, everyone. Thank you, Paul for having us. Looking forward to the conversation.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah. Very excited to have you.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Hi, Paul. I'm glad to be on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm Urvi.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, very excited to have you. So this is a special episode. We're going to talk with two product people and one fP&A person. And we're going to focus on product management. So I'm really excited to have our guests. They're coming to us from all different locations across the Western US. So we're going to go ahead and jump in. And we're going to start this question to Dara. As someone who has worked in the business, supported product from your mind, what does great business partnering from, FP&A look like? What do you look for when you're partnering with FP&A?
Guest: Dara Goroff:: I love that question, Paul, because what I think is most fantastic is when product management and the person in financial planning and analysis both see the art of the possible. Because when you're working a product life cycle, you could be at the very early stages of a new idea. That idea is not proven yet. There's no revenue behind it. You maybe even haven't gotten the idea out to market past the early adopter phase or pilot users. And you need to be supported by somebody in FP&A who doesn't just look at budget and the detriment of the fact that you have something out there that's just gaining steam and sees the art of what that product could be. The other thing that I think is amazing is when you can collaborate with the person FP&A. And a lot of times product success is dependent on a lot of small tweaks, maybe a tweak in how you bundle something, maybe it's a tweak in your go to market pricing, or how you price a retail product versus a wholesale product. And truly having that open dialogue and being able to again collaborate to bring something to market is an amazing synergy. What I have to say about that, though, to make it really possible, is that your FP&A team needs to be familiar with your customers, and they need to be familiar with their product line and the value proposition of that product line to the customers. And your product management team does have to have a certain amount of financial savvy to understand when that tweaking needs to happen, and when they need to go back to the financial planning and analysis team.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thanks. I appreciate that answer. We'll go over to our other product person here. Navya, what's your take? What is great business partnering from FP&A look like for you.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Yeah. So I agree with everything Dara said a few things to add. To me this question is so important because as a product person, it wasn't obvious for me for many years what good FP&A partnership looks like. Product people are mostly customer focused, so the partnership with sales or operations or marketing comes more naturally to product people. So for many years I missed out on the party. And I would say, I'll be honest, we're still improving our partnership and there's a lot to learn every single day. And I'm excited for this conversation as well. But to me, good partnership is, as FP&A is predicting the future, that product and finance are aligned on what that future is, and they are all aligned and asking the right questions. They're asking the five whys, and they're walking hand in hand that the momentum that product team is building is actually in the right direction. And a lot of times that doesn't happen naturally. The teams are communicating effectively. FP&A is proactively sharing insights without losing people into details. Both teams are vested in building relationships. And then finally, they're both teams are always, in my experience, overworked and stretched too thin, getting pulled in all different directions. This partnership works when there is mutual empathy on both sides, on what is driving the stress and the wins for each of the teams. And the teams are motivated to embrace the challenges and work towards them. But this can only happen once you actually know what it is to be in the shoes of the other team.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: There's two things I really love that you said there. The idea of alignment, right? We all got to be on the same page. And I think that's something Dara you emphasize as well. And then the empathy, trying to be understanding of where the other person's coming from and what they're going through versus just focused on yourself. Now we'll go over to our fP&A person, Urvi, do you have any thoughts or anything you want to add from your perspective working with product?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Oh, I loved hearing the product's perspective. I think it's really nice to see the other side. And as an fP&A person, like, it's really nice to get involved in product planning at the early stages. Like that's a very unique opportunity that most FP&A people would love to be involved in. And so like just for the product team to involve the FP&A people at their business partners at the right time to get aligned on that strategy that Navya talked about. And kind of make sure that we are all heading in the right direction, that helps with the product placement, the product pricing, profitability, all those tactical things that an FP&A can definitely be so helpful in and I think my biggest thing is getting aligned on the metrics, because both organizations look at product so differently. And so like product is focused, customer focused, and finances like FP&A is finance focused. So just getting aligned with on those metrics, like creating and tracking them from the get go, that that is like a great partnership. That kind of leads to just like overall good strategy.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: That's great. I know what you're saying. Like that. Early alignment is really critical. Getting involved early makes finance feel like they're involved in the process. And you don't run into situations sometimes where you come to find finance finds out about something or finds out about it from seeing the budget. And there's more than what was expected to be spent. Dara shaking her head. She's never had that conversation, right? No. Yeah. Both of them are like, oh yeah. No, we've never had to deal with that with finance. So you know that early alignment is a great point from a finance perspective. And just making sure that the spend and everything is in agreement. So there isn't problems down the road. So now we're just going to take a minute here and give our guests an opportunity to introduce themselves. We've talked a little bit about the whole partnering and what that looks like. And we'll dive more into that. So why don't we start with Urvi. If you want to start here or Urvi. If just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Hi. So I'm Urvi. I am working as an FP&A manager at Netdocuments. I support the tech ops organization and the product organizations here. It's a fun ride. I come from an accounting background and I have kind of found my place and my sweet spot and FP&A. And most of my professional career, I have been working in various small to mid-sized companies here in Salt Lake City. And I've also worked in manufacturing. So it's been it's been really fun being the strategic finance business partners and getting like an overall view for the businesses and for the industry in general.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Oh, great. Exciting. Sounds like you've been a lot of great companies. Thank you. Urvi, I appreciate that. Why don't we go over to Dara?
Guest: Dara Goroff:: Excellent. Thank you. Paul. So my name is Dara Goroff. I currently work for I-CAR, which is a collision repair educator and credentialing body. We set the standard for what our body shops need to know to be able to set a safe, quality and complete repair. I take care of planning, which includes product management for I-CAR, as well as the launch of a new initiative that we've brought to market to help encourage entry level technicians to join the industry and thrive in the industry. As Paul kind of alluded, we have a little bit of a past, but I've spent the majority of my career working in the automotive space, very much concentrated on providing solutions for collision repairers, franchise dealerships and even in some cases used car dealerships. I absolutely love the world of product management because it allows me, as I said earlier, to think about the art of the possible framed around problems customers really have. And it's such a delight when you get to think about a new innovation that can make your customers happy and help to make your business, whatever business it is you're working in, successful and stronger together. So like Urvi said, I found my sweet spot. I'm delighted by what I do, and I'm really excited to be part of this conversation because FP&A is so critical to product success.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thank you Dara. Appreciate that. Navya.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Okay, so I'm the chief product officer at Peek. Our mission at Peek is to connect the world through experiences. And we have the industry leading software product called Peek Pro that tours and activity operators use to run and grow their business. In my role, I'm responsible for product management, design and analytics. I'm an engineer by education who very quickly realized that engineering wasn't my strength, so I moved to product very quickly. I started my career on Wall Street, and literally instead of coding, I would take the ferry down from New Jersey to New York to sit down with my customers, because that was something that was far more interesting to me than coding. And I never looked back. So I've worked at bigger companies like Goldman Sachs, worked for Mickey Mouse for a little bit at Disney doing mobile gaming, and then the last decade has been in high growth startups like, Uber and then worked at StyleSeat in beauty. And then the last several years has been at Peek.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. Thank you. Appreciate each of you doing an introduction. So let's kind of jump in here. We have some different questions for each of our guests. And we'll start with Navya here. So what does a Chief Product officer do. If you were to describe your kind of role and function in the company, what does that include?
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: So a chief product officer is a C-level executive with the responsibility for making decisions that have a company wide impact. The fundamental difference between a product leader and a CPO is that a CPO needs to understand the full end-to-end business needs to know the current financials, the shareholder priorities, needs to understand the customer and market perspectives and help to drive decisions at that level. CPOs have the authority and the responsibility to make decisions that will drive growth and profitability for the company, but also the customers. A CPO is typically both working on strategic things, but often even tactical things that are required to transform the company. And the last thing I would say is each CPO has their spike. And it's important to know that cpos come in their own flavors, right? But ultimately, they all have the same responsibility for driving the end-to-end company success.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Got it. Thank you. Appreciate that. And so go to Dara next. You know kind of what is it like to work in product management. What's a typical day like or maybe just talk a little bit about that role, give our audience a little bit of a flavor for that.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: I would say there is no typical day as we've already talked about on this call, product managers and working in product management means you have a passion that is split between understanding an organization's goals and major business objectives, but also this passion to get into the heads and the mind space of your customers and really boots to the ground, see what their day to day activities are like so that you can a find those gaps and see what solutions might be perfect for their future, but b also see how they interact with whatever product or software or tooling you may have created for them in the past. So you combine this passion for understanding and being in the head of your customer to a mindset that really is analytical, because a good product manager, when they're not boots to the ground, face to face with their customers, needs to be planning either future success, or they need to be measuring the success of what they already have in the market and truly understanding what to do if the product isn't achieving the goals that you set and your customers are not behaving the way you expect, because as much as you can get into the field and really see what a customer wants, or even hear it from their own mouth.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: Sometimes how you translate their desire doesn't exactly match what they thought they saw in their head. So you need to be able to figure out your iteration path and really use like that ability to see the future, to map out different iteration paths. And what is the level of effort I might have to go through to make something happen, versus the amount of success or value I might see from taking that level of effort. So a really good product person spans some marketing tools that they use every day, some analytics tools they use every day. I'd say they're doing some intensive calculations on a weekly basis, but they're also painting that picture of what their customer wants in a very understandable way sometimes to take it back to a software development team. But sometimes, Paul, and you've probably seen this or Urvi, the product person has to represent that two FP&A so that you together can figure out from a success standpoint and success KPIs to manage to when the product has met the organization-wide goals.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thank you. That's helpful, definitely. There's an analytical side. As you mentioned. There's the customer side and coordinating and really trying to help bring that to life. As you mentioned, I think as both of you mentioned, there's some strategic and tactical in there. And so Urvi I'd love, as the finance professional in the room, so to speak. What's been your experience working with product maybe talk a little bit of kind of how you've worked with product over your career and what that's been like from your perspective.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: So I worked with, in PE companies, in SaaS companies. And sometimes there has been a product organization, sometimes it has been rolled up into R&D. And so working with a dedicated product organization was kind of unique. Like I had to kind of reorient myself to kind of see what is it that this organization needs for me, how can I help them? And so, in what has been helpful and what have helped besides the budgeting of discretionary spend of headcount, like all the bread and butter FP&A tasks, there is also this getting involved in the product planning process. And to see their roadmap for the product, how they think about it, the little bit of UI tweaks that they do and how that impacts the product. And you know, how that kind of translates that to the cost side of the business presenting that analysis doing a resource allocation or a pricing analysis. The biggest, the most rewarding of it was building a product investment model, in collaboration with the product team, where, to kind of actually see and what the map, the product map looks like financially. How does it impact all the financial key metrics? Does it align with strategy and presenting that, updating that, looking at TAM and SAM? So those have been some of the very interesting things that have had to do and have gotten to do with the product team in my roles as VP.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: And I'm going to ask you one follow-up question here. As you've got into those product roles, how important has it been that you've got to learn the product, the understand kind of the product and the business? Would you say that's kind of been critical to working with product and R&D teams or how do you think about that?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: I did not start out, to be honest, learning the product, like, you kind of know this is the product, this is the price. and then, you kind of hit a wall at some point and then it's like, I do not understand this. I do not follow this. What are you talking about? And then at that point, it's like, you have to you it's just in the best interest that you kind of have a basic understanding of the product from an FP&A standpoint. Also, to see how the new products or the existing improvements kind of tag along or are impacted by this. Otherwise, I think it's not a full experience. It's not fair to the FP&A team. It's not fair to the product team when you keep asking repetitive questions when you that you should absolutely know. So I think I have learned it the hard way that learning the product of the company and learning how the bundles are formed or how the pricing is created, um, is not only like it's essential, you can not do it. Um, and the sooner you realize that, the better. So.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: And now a word from our sponsor. The FP&A process is broken. You know it is. And I know it is. Putting together management reports takes forever. There is a growing demand for operational insights and running scenarios are preparing budgets will inevitably break your spreadsheets. It doesn't have to be this way. Abacum is the leading mid-market, FP&A solution, empowering hundreds of finance teams to eliminate their spreadsheets, struggle with automated reporting and forecasting. With Abacum, finance teams can see every financial and operational KPI in real time forecast revenue more accurately build headcount plans, budget their spend more effectively, and run any scenario with just one click. Abacum is the most scalable FP&A solution for finance teams. If you want to double your output half your reporting time, forecast your performance, and become a strategic partner to your business, visit Abacum today. Yeah, I 100% agree with you and I love what you said. You're going to hit a wall if you don't learn that product. If you don't invest the time in those relationships and being able to contribute to the conversation beyond, here's the budget, here's the cost, right? The more you understand that. So now we're going to go over to our, uh, our product people here. And we're going to give them an opportunity. I'm going to give them a fun question that I think they'll like. I'd love to hear maybe what an experience or in general, what's been the most frustrating thing when you guys have worked with FP&A? And we'll start with you, Dara. What you can either share an experience or just in general, what's been some of your frustrations that you've had when you've had to work on budget and different assignments with FP&A?
Guest: Dara Goroff:: So it's quite interesting you ask that question, Paul, because lately, my experience with FP&A has been fantastic. But there were two points of frustration early on in my career and one point of frustration more recently, maybe three years back. Early on in my career, I think Navya and Urvi both kind of alluded to this, which is I did not realize that somebody working on FP&A could be an asset or a partner to me. I kind of saw them as this checkbook and being in product management and living the world of what if? And this is what my customers want. It was really hard for me to even want to think about a budgetary constraint of, okay, Dara, you can't have all the resources you need to build this in three months. You have to build something in six months because you're going to do it with two less people. Those kind of conversations were so frustrating to me because I was just not understanding of the fact that if I built that bridge and created that partnership and helped my FP&A team to understand my roadmap, understand my customer's needs, even understand some of the loose level financial projections that a product person can do that my path to a yes might have been easier, or my path might have still been to a no, but we would both understand the ramifications of the no.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: So no, you don't get the resources you need because we need to stick with this budget because of company-wide objectives. But we also understand your product is not going to market for six months, so we're not going to hold you accountable to revenue till nine months or greater from now. So that frustration cleared up. The more that I matured in my own career path, the more that I actually, you know, ended up moving up in companies to get that wider lens view and had a fuller understanding of business objectives versus my own roadmap and my own objectives. But what I will say can be frustrating is sometimes you deal with an FP&A team that really is risk-averse, and for reasons that nobody in the business understands, they want to stay under budget and you can't get them to see the light. And when that happens, no matter what tactic you try of putting them into the customer space and really painting that external picture, you can run into frustration. But I will also share that. Like in the past several years, I have not encountered what I used to refer to as FP, no rather than FP, and a yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: So two kind of funny stories to that, and then we'll go over it to Nadya. The first one you said FP no, we had a guest on the show that he used to refer to a CFO as CF. No, I think he was an intern at time, like 20 and somehow got back to the CFO and he got called into the CFOs office, and the CFO thought he was referring to him as CF"NO", "KNOW". Like he “O-W” like he was really knowledgeable and so thanked him for that. He didn't correct him. He just said okay and left the office, because he thought he was getting fired. So we've all dealt with the CFKNOW and the second I'll share. So Dara and I work together. I was actually FP&A support for a while and. I still remember she once made a comment the company she worked at was the only. This was the only company where she enjoyed legal more than finance that she had worked at. We'll just say finance had a reputation at that company. So that's one of my favorite memories from Dara. But we had a great relationship. So we'll go over to Navya and give her an opportunity to share kind of maybe one of her frustrations or challenges she's experienced during her career working with FP&A. Yeah.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: So I want to share. And typically I would agree that frustrations are typically around cash. Right. So cash is king and the risk assessment is not aligned. The example that I have is actually a different one, which is uh, you know, we all believe that cash is king, but also data is king. So we had for our entire company after our series C at peak, and we went through our first budgeting cycle after seeing tremendous growth in the company. So with this growth, the product and finance teams had to develop their ways of working. Right. If you imagine the whole company is or, you know, 60% of the company was fairly new at that time, uh, and it went quite poorly since there was lack of understanding on the data, there was lack of collaboration. There were mistakes made along the way, the teams were looking at the data sources in an inconsistent manner. The QA process was missing because the right people weren't confirming the data. And, in many ways, both teams were overlooking the impact of market dynamics because the teams were fairly new. But thankfully, we have a culture that encourages very open communication and collaboration and a growth mindset like, these are all our core values, which led to discussing every challenge that we ran into. And we identified great solutions to make us all effective as a team. So let's say, just like product management, you're never done building. I don't think we were done evolving our budgeting process. It continues to get better every single day. But I still have some nightmares on our first cycle after that tremendous growth.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I could imagine after a lot of growth, it could be really painful. You've just raised money, more money. So you have the different investor expectations. You have a different growth profile and trying to figure out, okay, how do we get to the next step. And often that early hypergrowth comes at a heavy cost. And then they want to rein in all that cost. And so it's just it's a very challenging budget cycle when that happens. And I see everybody nodding their heads or kind of chuckling a little bit because I have a feeling everyone on this call has been through that experience. When that happens and it's critical. I think like you said something you mentioned there are two things that growth mindset to get through it and being willing to have open conversations. Sometimes they're tough conversations, but as long as they're respectful, you come out the other side better. And so that's one thing I'd say with that budget process is it's just critical to be open, to be transparent and work through the issues, because there'll be times you may not agree, there'll be times that finance may agree with you, but corporate will come in and say, here's the number, figure it out. Right. We've all been there. And sometimes you go, well, I really can't figure that out. Well, that's your problem, not mine. And those are always fun. So I see everybody chuckling a little bit of that. But we'll go over to our finance professional now and give her a chance. From your perspective what's been some of the biggest challenges maybe working with product or some of your kind of frustrations as you try to work with product on budget or just kind of FP&A in general from your perspective.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: So it has been fun listening to perspective from product because some of the challenges we face are the same, but just from a finance side. I totally kind of agree with Navya when she said, like the data inconsistencies or the different perspectives of looking at data and at the grain that you look at the data also. And with high growth companies the processes like the growth of an org basis, the processes. And so we do not have clean data. You do not have great data to begin with. And then everybody kind of wants to look at it in their own way and at their own grain. And so that is one of the things that kind of has been my challenge is to work with product and marketing or sales across the board that we don't have a defined way to look at it like we have not kind of sat down and kind of decided a strategy that this is this is how we need to look at it. This is what we need to agree on for the KPIs and have a data strategy of sorts. I also agree with dara on the headcount conversations are always the hardest to have. And to get your point across because our working at SAS Companies. I've always seen that headcount is, like the biggest expense. And just like a PSA out there, like, all FP&A professionals are risk averse. That's the nature of the job, that's why we are an FP&A. And so, yes, most of the FP&A professionals are risk averse. And our goal is to meet those net income or EBITDA goals, to have those gross margins lined up to the board expectations or to the stock market and so that's the place that it's coming from. And I have also seen that having like transparency and open communication about the deadlines, like we have specific deadlines for budget and for like three versions of the budget or three at least presentations of the budget. And honestly, the world doesn't revolve around those deadlines for the monthly closes and the budget deadlines or the board deadlines. And so it's hard to get information from the business to meet those deadlines. Right. And I don't think that kind of translates well where FP&A is seen as this bureaucratic just budget-focused, numbers-focused organization, but it's just coming from a different place. And so it's kind of it's kind of fun having this conversation. So thank you, Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. So you know, a couple of things you said there that I really liked I think this was mentioned more than once. That's always a challenge. Right, data. And it's not just data, but it's often how we interpret it, how we measure it, like finance calculates one metric one way. You guys calculate it a different way. I'm guessing every one of you have walked into a meeting and you open with the number and someone says, I have a different number. And the meeting delves into, well, what are the assumptions around that number? And I've learned, if that. If you ever get to that point in the meeting, you're not getting anything accomplished. You're just going to discuss different approaches. And so anytime you can align that data culture and that's going to be true product. Every organization, the more you've aligned your data definitions you have a consistent culture. And same data sources. The less that becomes an issue, the worse your data is. I think the more it tends to become an issue. And I've definitely worked in some companies where the data lacked, to put it mildly. So and then the second thing you said is just deadlines, right? That transparency, it's so important. And I've seen a lot of people in other businesses. That's where they get frustrated with finances during the budget cycle, not being real clear about the deadlines and not making sure that they give the business enough time. Right. I'm sure I see NAvya Dara kind of nodding their head there. I'm sure you've both experienced that. Hey, we need a bike tomorrow morning. It's like, well, why didn't you tell me about this a week ago? I need time to do it. Navya is smiling there. Do you have something to say on that one? I think you're I hit a spot there.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Oh, man. Yes, a lot to say. But I have a lot of empathy as well. There are these external deadlines that were all laughing about or sometimes not in the control of finance people. Right. So my only ask is, as soon as you know, please broadcast it to the business and don't wait till the last minute, please.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: Yes, I will, add something to that as well, because Paul, as we're all laughing about this and we think about budget season. And we think about the fact that our FP&A team is here for multiple purposes, not just to help us predict the future, not just to make sure that we're pricing our products in the most agreeable way for our customers. But really, you guys are controlling for some risk, and sometimes you need to make a change to something we answered or gave in our budget cycle. And what I would say is, the best thing you can do is especially involve your product management leadership there. Because as part of an executive team, myself and doing that over the last several companies I worked in, nobody likes to get their budget back and see here are some dollars that were cut out of it. But we cut all your dollars in travel because we don't think you product need to travel as much as you say. And then part of your sales strategy for your product may be speaking at conferences or maybe getting face-to-face time with certain communities, like for back when we were working together, those dealer groups were so important to us. Right. So I think everyone understands that whenever we ask for money on the product side, we're going to ask for as much as we possibly can, because we also know it will be negotiated down, but involve us in that prioritization when it is negotiated down. Because what you cut, actually, you may even be surprised at the strategy that you've also cut if you don't involve the product team.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: A word from our sponsor. Let's address the elephant in the room. Bad data. Any investment made on top of a rotten foundation is money down the drain. The Analyst Intelligence Platform, or AIP, is a data transformation notebook where users write their tasks and the system does the work for them. Clean data is so critical for decision-making. The daydream, the BI tool for operators, gives customers a discount for using AIP. Learn more at analystintelligence.com. Yeah, that's a really great point. There is look, if there has to be cuts, which there often is, we know that almost never is the first number, the final number, right. Is to make sure you have that open communication and you prioritize things. And I've definitely had times where I've done that and I've had other times where I've made cuts and that doesn't go as well because then, hey, here's your new number. And it's like, okay, how do we work within this budget? What do we do? So some great points there I appreciate both of those. And another question I'd like to kind of ask here is, this is for Dara. And then we'll go to Navya here. What is great FP&A support mean to you? Like what is maybe the 1 or 2 things you really want from FP&A on a regular basis that you're like, okay, I know things are working well here.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: I would say the first thing is the relationship, and I love my current team that I have working with me on FP&A. I really enjoyed working with Paul, no matter what he said about me preferring the legal team because I loved that legal team. But really it's the relationship and the ability to have a very productive disagreement about how, when and why we may want to budget something or spend something. I think that it is delightful when my FP&A leadership also feels a really strong affinity to my customer, because everything you do on the product side is to position your company to delight your customer and position the needs of your your customers back to your company to be included in strategy. And when FP&A is equally invested in that relationship and understands the importance of that, I find that you have this great harmony and this great flow, and even when you may disagree about dollars and cents, you will come to the most productive final conclusion of what a budget should look like, or possibly what a forecast should look like. And everything is wonderful.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, I don't know if I've ever had everything wonderful, but I've had most things I've got close. How about you, Navya? What's your kind of take there?
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Yeah. So I agree with that. Agree with all the conversations we've had around aligning on communication planning. Another like another big one for me is getting FP&A support on strategic insights. And that's something that has been really valuable for us. I personally partnered with our really amazing FP&A team to create a product ROI model for the board. And that was simply done because of the way our FP&A team looks at data. We as product people look at things from a customer angle. FP&A used to looking things that even at a transaction level or transaction angle, at an asset angle. And what I appreciated about that conversation is we started the conversation at 20,000ft. And then together as a team, we zoomed into details, but regularly as we were building the model, we zoomed out enough to identify new opportunities for the business that the product team was actually overlooking that drove business growth. So to me really zooming out and zooming in together as a team helps expose these new opportunities, which can be meaningful and helps build alignment, that both teams are building momentum in the right direction, both from a focus perspective or even from an investment perspective.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: And there's a couple things I love that you said there. One, I love the image strategy and having an FP&A team that can be strategic, it's really important that they go beyond the numbers, right? If you have someone that's just in the spreadsheet and it's always about cost with no real appreciation for the business or the customer, it just doesn't work. I say again and again to FP&A professionals all the time, the biggest thing you can do is get to know the business, get to know the operations of the business and the people you work with. Yes, numbers are how we explain things. Yes, you have to be able to work in a spreadsheet, but that's not really the job, right? It's helping drive insights and value. And that comes from, like you said, looking at the big picture, zooming back in and getting that different perspective because you know for sure finance will look at it in a different lens than product. And if you have that open communication, you can come to different conclusions. Sometimes that makes everything better in the end. That's obviously the goal. That's where you want to get is because you each brought different perspectives and you were strategic. You came away with a better end product or end budget right plan. And so now we've asked our two product people. Now we get to go over to our finance person and get her thoughts from kind of her perspective, Maybe any thoughts on what a great partner is in product or thoughts for them as you're working with them?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: No, I agree with all of these viewpoints. And even from a FP&A standpoint, these are important to get aligned on strategy, to kind of work on things together. What I want to add is to have the FP&A team involved in the beginning of the planning process or as soon as possible. I think that is the biggest challenge because and that can be effected through good communication, through not having silos because sometimes it's like kind of chugs along all the organizations and FP&A finds out about it post haste, and then you are catching up to it. So I think a good practice is what I, what I would value is to get to be involved at, at the planning phase. Right. And then kind of working through all of these things together to break down those silos and to have good communication skills and to kind of move in the same, same direction. But that's the that's the only thing I would add to everything that Dara and Navya has said.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I think that's a great point. Whether it's product or others, is that early communication, the worst is when we find out about something after the money's been committed. And I've seen that before and I even had a partner one time that kind of hid things from me because he wanted them to be recognized at different times. That was a fun one to try to manage. But so that open, transparent early communication, I would agree with you is just critical. It makes things go better. So we're going to we're going to move into toward the end of our interview, we have two sections we're going to do here. We have one kind of called rapid fire. Some of these questions will be for everybody. A couple of them will just be for Urvi here on the finance side Urvi. And then we're going to go to a couple questions around getting to know you. And then we'll wrap up. So we have a just a few more minutes here. So this first question we'll just we're going to ask all three of you. It's a fairly simple one. So we'll start with Navya here. Do you prefer using a Google or Excel for your spreadsheet?
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Oh my god I'm going to get blacklisted in this finance podcast. But Google is my answer.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I figured that would be your answer. Dara.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: Excel.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Excel and I see you're not nodding your head. I already know the finance answer. I'm just kidding.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Yes, Excel. Excel all the way.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All right. And then here's the next question. And we'll flip the order here. So we'll go to finance first. Are you currently using generative AI in your work today? If so, how?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: We are kind of starting to use AI and the documents just a little bit. And that's the Copilot feature that is integrated with Microsoft. That makes it easy. And so it's to summarize meetings or to create some presentations based on some summary data or summarizing a page. On the product side, though, it's super exciting because our product team is building a product based on generative AI for the legal tech domain. And that's super exciting. So that is there. But internally we are using it this way. I know of a few instances where we have used AI for quota allocation for our salespeople and that kind of with some anonymized data. And so we have been kind of slowly inching towards that, but it's not kind of a full-blown thing, but I'm hoping we all get to leverage it more on the buy side and on the FP&A and the accounting side as well.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. So it sounds like learning more about it and starting to use it. So great. Dara, from your perspective, how are you using generative AI?
Guest: Dara Goroff:: So dipping the toe in, from the product management side a little bit in storytelling, a little bit in documenting is Urvi mentioned it's a great tool if you're having a conversation or doing a customer interview and you need transcription. AI works wonderfully. Haven't fully integrated it into our product lines yet, but definitely looking to continue the internal focus on how we can help storytell through it. And then one other thing. I think we're probably all using AI a little bit more than we know, because if you're using a visualization tool of any kind, whether it's Tableau or Power BI, what takes you from being able to type in a question and have something generate into a beautiful chart? There is some generative AI on the back end there that's that's helping to pull those stories together visually.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Navya what's your kind of experience there with generative AI so far?
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Yeah, I'll share mine because my team is using different different tools and engineering sales product. We're also building our custom LLM's. But for me personally, I use generative AI as a brainstorm, buddy. As I'm working on different talk tracks, I use it for cooking recipes. I use it for creating presentations from talking points. So I would feed it talking points and get a beautiful deck. And then finally, also for data analysis although I always check the work that the LKM gives me.
Speaker5: Yeah, you definitely want to check it. I say it's like you would never take the interns work and give it to your boss. You shouldn't do the same with AI. All right, so these next two questions are going to go to Urvi here. These are our finance questions. So I'm going to get your perspective. What is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should map your view.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Yeah that's a good one. So the importance of data analysis is increasing so much. And so I think FP&A has this unique opportunity where they kind of see the whole organization, they get to interact with the whole organization and have like this 20,000 view and also like a detailed view. So I think the most important thing is to be a bridge a data architect kind of role, where you kind of see what each organization needs from a data perspective. And kind of to understand the systems and the architecture on the other side and bridge that gap. And I think to make that and to lead that process, to lead that organization, if you will to get to a good data strategy so that everybody can have good validated operational metrics good financial data. Right. And I think FP&A is in this unique position to kind of have that to be that bridge, to be that data architect. And I think that that's like that's super important.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Do you need to level up your FP&A game? Then join us April 23rd for the FP&A guys. Best practice FP&A course. Imagine working smarter, gaining greater visibility, and becoming a top flight FP&A Pro. During the four sessions, we will teach practical frameworks and share real-world examples that will make you a better FP&A professional. Visit thefpandaguy.com/fpa-course to learn more and become the FP&A expert your company cannot do without. Yeah, definitely. I think that's a great skill to understand how to work with data, to understand how data flows, and be able to work with the business and help ensure data is aligned. It's just becoming a bigger and bigger role for fP&A professionals, whether we like it or not. And for everybody, frankly. So what do you think is the number one I'll call soft or human skill that FP&A professionals need to master.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Storytelling, I think just getting out of the financials, getting out of the spreadsheet to really understand the business and to kind of be able to present it in a way to different audiences, and leverage visualizations offered by generative AI, maybe, and kind of be able to tell that story to kind of bring everybody on the same page to align on the strategy. I think that will help to influence the business and to guide it towards that overarching strategy that is laid out for the next two years, five years. I think that is a great skill to have to transition from being an FP&A analyst to being like, to business partnering. And that's not going away any time soon with any advances.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite sections to teach when I teach FP&A and I have a data storytelling course. And definitely being able to tell the story is important. And it's something that takes practice and you can't do it in a spreadsheet. All right. So we're going to move on to our next section. This is the get to know you section. So we're just going to ask you a couple questions about yourself. Go you know relatively quick here. Give the audience an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better. Navya how about you. What do you do when you have some free time? That's a hobby or passion of yours.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Time is always constraint. I have two little kids, so my personal hobby is actually hanging out with my two little kids. I do hear that this doesn't last. They wouldn't want to hang out with me when they're a little older, so I'm trying to make the best out of it. And we do a lot of fun things together.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, definitely enjoy that. I know my daughter's getting older. Well she still likes to hang out, but it's not quite the same. She's almost 11. She's getting close to being a teenager. So yeah, enjoy it when you're their world because it won't always be that way. Alrighty, Urvi, what's your hobby or passion? What do you like to do?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: So I really enjoy cooking, and it gives me an opportunity to experiment with different things. Just do my crazy little thing in my own kitchen, not follow rules. And I do enjoy reading both fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi is something that I stay away from, not my jam. But I do like going outdoors in the summer and kind of hiking and going biking around our neighborhood. So just hanging out with my family.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. It's got a few hobbies in there, some cooking, some reading, getting outdoors. So we're going to move to the next one here. And we'll start with Navya on this one. What's your favorite travel destination?
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Santorini in Greece. I do think it's a dreamy getaway with beautiful sunsets like crystal clear water, whitewashed buildings. I don't think anything else compares.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I've been to Greece and that's a fun place to go. I haven't been to that area in Greece, but it's definitely beautiful there. And Urvi what's your destination going to be?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: From all the places I have traveled, I have really enjoyed going to Napa Valley, California, and it's just so relaxing. It brings you closer to nature. Good food, a relaxed lifestyle, I think that was a vacation I've really, truly enjoyed from everywhere that I've traveled.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. Now Napa Valley is a fun place. I have been there. All right. So last get to know your question. This is kind of a fun one to see the different answers we get. And we'll start with Navya on this one. If you could have dinner with any person that's alive in the world today, who are you going to have dinner with?
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: Michelle Obama, and in addition to her being our former first lady, I am always inspired by her work in education, health and women rights. So knowing or having read her book that would be a dinner that I would want any day, and it would lead to some amazing conversations.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. All right. Urvi, who are you going to pick for, Urvi?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: So I have read "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. And I would love to pick her brain, sit down to dinner with her and kind of get her thoughts on a lot of things. And I think I've been following her podcast. No stupid questions. Super interesting, like economics and psychology converging. So I think it'd be a fun conversation to have with Angela.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: So I want to just take a minute and thank the three of you for joining us. This has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. I think there's been some great advice both from a product and a finance perspective. And I want to say just to our audience is listening. It really is critical that as finance professionals, we make sure we're listening to our business partners, and we're having those conversations and learning the business and working with them. And I can tell you they will appreciate that. So we're going to go ahead and just kind of wrap up here and give each of them just 15 20 secs to share any last thoughts that they might have from the episode. So we'll start with, Navya here.
Guest: Navya Rehani Gupta:: At last time. I don't think we talked about it. But don't forget to have fun. You know, this is it's not a sprint. It's a marathon. And every time you go through some important budget deadline or some other deadline, don't forget to get everybody involved in the business, talk about, celebrate, and then also encourage reflections and collect feedback.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I love that about having fun. You got to have fun in the journey. Otherwise it can sometimes be a little bit of drudgery. So laugh at yourself. Enjoy it. Celebrate those moments. Great! I like that you pointed out also recovering from failure together versus finger-pointing. Not that that when any of us have ever seen that. But I've heard it's happened. Urvi what's your parting thoughts?
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: I love both of these. And I would love to be invited to a business partner celebration. And I promise I would invite you back to a financial celebration. And I would like to add to this list empathy. I think just being in somebody else's shoes seeing from their perspective is huge and it's underappreciated. And I think that should be more common.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Well, we'll go ahead and close on that note empathy. So just a final thank you to each of our guests will put their, LinkedIn information. So if you want to contact them or connect with them, you can get that on LinkedIn when we release the show. And again, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciated getting the chat with each of you.
Guest: Dara Goroff:: Thank you.
Guest: Urvi Kapadia:: Thank you Paul, it was great to talk to you and Navya and Dara.
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.