The Certainty of Uncertainty: How Scenario Modeling Lets You Plan for the Unknown

The 2020s have been a decade marked by uncertainty. From bear and bull markets to pandemic-fueled supply chain shortages to geopolitical shifts, this decade certainly hasn't been boring.

The uncertainty we’ve faced these past few years doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon, and businesses need to be able to not only respond quickly to change, but to actively plan for it. With the rapid rate of change we’re consistently seeing in the market, opportunities and threats appear quickly, and then are gone. Organizations need the ability to efficiently plan for uncertainty and respond to these fluctuations in the market.

Integrating the ability to quickly evaluate a wide range of scenarios with multiple variables into the budgeting and planning process is essential to this. This becomes even more effective when paired with driver based budgeting, where key operational drivers already form the foundation of the planning model. A recent FSN survey found that the effective use of scenario planning enables organizations to respond quickly and confidently during times of extreme change. Organizations that already use driver based forecasting typically see even faster reforecast cycles because their core business drivers are already structured for rapid scenario updates. In fact, 77 percent of organizations that find the time to consider what-if scenarios can reforecast earnings within a week. Scenario modeling gives you the ability to not just have a plan A, but also to evaluate plan B, plan C, plan D, and more.

Scenario Planning is Essential for Informed Decision-Making

Scenario modeling is the practice of developing financial models based on several possible outcomes and developing plans around each of those situations. By thinking through the implications of each scenario, business leaders can thoroughly explore their options in advance and agree on the measures they will take given a specific set of circumstances. It is a huge asset for organizations seeking a stronger foundation for executive decisions.

Performing effective, timely, and relevant what-if analysis is critical for larger organizations to build agility and drive profitability. What-if planning allows you to:

• Understand and prepare for your best-case, worst-case, and likely-case scenarios

• Expect the unexpected by modeling outcomes for any possible set of variables

• Make better business decisions based on in-depth analysis of multiple scenarios

• Identify and mitigate risks before they can affect your bottom line

Scenario modeling is an extraordinarily valuable undertaking, but manual spreadsheet-based what-if analysis is slow, error-prone, and unable to scale. Due to their complexity and susceptibility to manual entry errors, creating agile scenario plans and rolling forecasts is simply not feasible in static spreadsheets.

In addition to modeling scenarios to plan for uncertainty in the near-term, many business leaders use what-if scenarios to plan for the long-term, leveraging scenario modeling to extend their view beyond the typical one-year planning horizon, and even beyond the three-to-five-year strategic planning window. However, managing a library of spreadsheet-based scenario planning models to support a cohesive long-term view of the future can quickly become unwieldy.

The huge complexity of spreadsheet-based what-if analysis makes the process slow, cumbersome, and unable to respond adequately to the increasing rate of change experienced by organizations today. To best take advantage of what-if modeling, you need to have robust budgeting and planning software in place.

How insightsoftware Allows You to Confidently Plan for Uncertainty

Confidence in your organizational plans requires a budgeting and planning solution that enables continuous updates and revisions to financial forecasts using real-time data from various sources. Bizview from insightsoftware is a robust, web-based planning solution that allows organizations to connect data, increase planning cadences, facilitate collaboration, and simplify processes to drive smarter decisions from more accurate data. Painless configuration of planning forms, reports and dashboards, and automated workflow tools make it easy to plan frequently and accurately, and to implement rolling forecasts and scenario planning to drive better business decisions.

With a familiar spreadsheet-like interface, Bizview is a planning solution that offers anywhere, anytime access to your planning data in a single repository. Bizview can pull planning data from multiple disparate systems and seamlessly integrate it for easy, real-time planning and analysis. It simplifies scenario modeling processes with powerful workflows, automated emails, and multi-level approvals for collaboration with your team. With Bizview, you can quickly and easily create unlimited scenarios, ensuring better decision-making throughout the year – no matter how uncertain the market landscape may look.

The ability to reforecast quickly and accurately is crucial to responding to highly changeable market conditions. Bizview from insightsoftware allows you to model multiple scenarios based on different assumptions with what-if analysis, empowering your business to identify risks, find new business opportunities, and rapidly respond to changing conditions with proactive decision-making.

Uncertainty has become one of the defining characteristics of the 2020s, but insightsoftware is here to help you better prepare for an uncertain future with collaborative and connected planning and modeling tools. Learn more about how frequent forecasting enables you to plan for uncertainty by watching our on-demand webinar, Navigating a Fast-Changing World: Frequent Forecasting in Financial Planning.