Introduction: The CEO and CFO will be using OIS to provide insights into improving both the firm’s profit and related aspects of the firm’s financial performance without disrupting the traditional budget’s processes and utilization. The author’s suggestion is that OIS’s support should be provided by a small CHQ department reporting to the CFO. It’s a small department because OIS is a model and it’s straight forward to formulate the changes necessary in a current model or develop a new one to address the CFO/CEO’s issues.

Another way to think about the department is that it becomes, in effect, an advanced analytics “wheel house” for the CFO/CEO.  In fact, such a function was out-looked in 2014 by the then CEO of Deloitte. In addition, in 2016 Thomas Davenport published another article in CMO describing Finance as currently behind in advanced analytics’. Certainly, something OIS fixes definitely.

Context: Among the variety of advanced analytic advantages OIS provides, one of the most important is its forecasting capability. It sets a new best practices standard by providing a forecast that is the most profitable one possible.

Issues the CFO/CEO will likely want addressed:

• Profit improvements beyond what’s budgeted. There are a variety of options:

If  OIS’s new profit is enough better than what’s budgeted, a simple analysis is performed to determine its source. Simply compare OIS’s departments’ costs with the appropriate departments’ budgeted costs and adjust the budget as appropriate.

• • For applications that develop forecasts in addition to the budget’s. List was provided by a ChatGPT query:
    • Demand Planning and Forecasting Software: These applications focus on predicting future demand to optimize inventory, production, and distribution.
    • Advanced Production Planning (APP): These tools develop forecasts related to production schedules, capacities, and inventory management to align with demand.
    • Inventory Management Systems: These systems ensure optimal stock levels based on forecasts, independent of the budget.
    • Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP): While these systems integrate financial and operational plans, they generally use their own forecasts, incorporating demand, supply, and production data.
    • Transportation Management Systems (TMS): While focused on optimizing transport operations, TMS tools often develop forecasts related to capacity and route planning, distinct from the financial budget.

• For other financial performance analyses of interest to the CFO/CEOs., see

“OIS Additional advantages for clients’ CFOs/CEOs.” see tab on OIS home page

• Plans for eliminating the budget in Phase II: Budgets generically have a variety of objectives. Further, each firm will tailor its budgeting objectives to meet its particular needs. So, there can be no “one size fits all” plan to replace it; each will be specific to the firm. So, developing such a plan is an essential deliverable of Phase I since replacing
  • it eliminates its widely acknowledged problems and cost.

Further, these problems have created a variety”work a rounds.” Budgeting specific examples include zero-based budgeting, flexible budgeting and activity-based budgeting. Other process examples include Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), Integrated Business Planning and driver-based planning.

All of their costs and HC  commitments will also be eliminated.