Board & ISG Series | Episode 2 – How to Lower Planning Implementation Risk

Hi, this is Samson Jones with technology research and advisory services firm ISG.

Supply chain-intensive businesses are dealing with massive levels of business

uncertainty today due to supply shocks, labor cost changes, and an uncertain

geopolitical environment. So it's no surprise that firms in these sectors are

looking to improve their business planning and forecasting, and one of the ways

they can do that is via an enterprise performance management or EPM solution.

That said, given the complex environment inside of many of these firms today, due

to things like legacy systems and data, companies are often hesitant to transform

unless the ROI is clear and the risks are clearly mitigated.

So with me to talk about this topic today is Björn Maunz.

Björn is the practice lead for the Office of Finance at Board. Welcome, Björn.

Hello, Samson. Thanks for having me today.

So Björn, let's talk about how Board addresses this complexity concern with your

clients.

Yeah. I would argue it might be your first finance transformation, but it's

definitely not your last transformation.

Yeah, this kind of change is becoming a constant.

So you look at the outside market, but also the reorganization of your own

processes. So I think the question is much more, do you have the right partner at

your side to go on this journey with you?

And we at Board, we have 30 years plus experience in enterprise planning, and this

goes from a technology standpoint on how to integrate in existing systems, but also

from a functional standpoint on how use cases build up on each other.

So here, through our solution approach, we offer standard where standard is due,

but also the flexibility and the openness to exactly cater to the needs of your

business model.

Thanks, Björn. So we're seeing an increasing expectation that AI will help to

actually accelerate transformation.

So my question is, how are you at Board using AI to take work off the

transformation itself?

Yeah. So we at Board offer a multitude of agents, use case based or even persona

based. In this case, the right agent, in my mind, is the so-called architect agent.

And the architect agent is also, let's say, able to write code as most agents

are. But our approach here, again, and because it's an integral part of our

platform, the architect agent can assess existing solutions, even optimize them,

but also help you to build or build for you adjacent use cases.

So this is for us, a real game changer that helps develop on the platform with you

the next use cases.

Thanks, Björn. So just to summarize, I agree with you that transformation is

increasingly going to be continuous given the pace of change that we're all seeing

with AI. But with your solution-based approach, that means for your customers,

they're not starting from scratch, but given that it's a planning platform, it's

also built to change as companies change.

And finally, your architect agent can help to accelerate transformation by

optimizing existing solutions and when the time is right, to suggest adjacent use

cases.

Exactly that, and if you find yourself in this position, as many do, as I know that

you have a finance transformation in front of you, or you're in the middle of a

finance transformation, or you have the AI topic on your desk, we would

invite you to get in contact with Board.

And it's regardless if you're at the beginning of your journey or already quite

mature and want to make AI an integral part of your IBP steering

concept, then Board is right for you and would invite you to a workshop with us.