Version 1.32: Budget Season’s Real Problem Is Alignment

If your budget is technically accurate but disconnected from where your company is headed, you don’t have a numbers problem – you have an alignment problem. In this sponsored episode of the FEI Podcast, Ryan Langenbrunner, Worldwide Leader for Planning Analytics with IBM’s Chief Data Office; Bill Primerano, Worldwide CTO for AI Analytics at IBM; and Michael Bernaiche, Director of AI Analytics Software at Lodestar Solutions, draw on decades of experience on both sides of financial planning.

They discuss how IBM moved from 120-slide control books and multiweek review cycles to a daily close, why a “single” budget that reached version 1.32 shows the limits of accuracy without timeliness, and why AI in finance should be treated as augmented intelligence with a human in the loop. The panel also explores who should govern AI spending and ROI, the cost of falling behind on planning technology, how to avoid being won over by a shiny demo, and why the best time to start writing your planning requirements is during this year’s budget cycle.

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This episode is sponsored by Lodestar Solutions. Host Heather Cole is the founder and owner of Lodestar Solutions.

Special Guests: Bill Primerano, Mike Bernaiche, and Ryan Langenbrunner.