The CFO Show Annual Planning: Beyond Numbers to Business Growth
Jul 29, 2025
Igor Stelea, Director of Strategic Finance at CFGI, dives into the intricacies of effective annual planning. He emphasizes the importance of honest plan reviews and aligning strategic and operational goals. Igor shares insights on using OKRs, rolling forecasts, and scenario planning to enhance agility amidst uncertainty. He warns against common pitfalls like siloed planning and stresses the need for cross-functional collaboration. Additionally, he highlights the role of mature finance teams in driving decision-making through storytelling and strategic partnership.
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Strategy Is The 'Why', Operating Plan The 'How'
- Treat the strategic plan as the why and the operating plan as the how, linking top-down targets to execution.
- Use OKRs to translate strategic objectives into measurable key results that drive prioritization and trade-offs.
Keep A Living Long-Range Plan
- Maintain a three- to five-year long-range plan and update it at least annually, using year-one budget detail as the baseline.
- Use higher-level drivers beyond year one and consider rolling forecasts for 12–18 months of visibility.
Run Cross-Functional Sprints With A Single Source
- Run planning cross-functionally with finance as facilitator and create planning sprints rather than one-off email templates.
- Implement tools with workflows and single-source-of-truth dimensions to reduce manual effort and link SKU-level drivers to GL rollups.
