For much of the past two decades, the role of FP&A has been relatively well defined. Finance teams collected data, reconciled numbers, produced forecasts, and explained variances after the fact. Success was measured by accuracy, discipline, and adherence to plan.

Volatility has fundamentally disrupted that model.

Macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical shocks, rapid cost inflation, supply chain fragility, regulatory change, and accelerating technology cycles have made traditional planning approaches increasingly inadequate. In this environment, simply reporting what happened or producing a forecast that is obsolete weeks after approval no longer meets the needs of senior leadership.

As a result, FP&A is undergoing a profound shift. The function is moving away from being a finance reporter and towards becoming a business navigator: a forward-looking, decision-oriented partner that helps leadership steer the organisation through uncertainty. 

This shift is not incremental. It requires new ways of thinking, new skills, and, critically, new planning capabilities. And that’s what we’re going to explore in this article.

Why the traditional FP&A role is breaking down

The historical FP&A operating model was built for relative stability. Annual budgets, periodic reforecasts, and linear assumptions made sense when markets moved slowly and predictably.

Today, those conditions no longer hold.

Volatility has exposed several structural weaknesses in traditional FP&A roles:

• Lagging insight: By the time data is consolidated, analysed, and reported, the underlying conditions may already have changed.

• Overemphasis on variance explanation: Significant effort is spent explaining why numbers differ from plan, rather than helping the business decide what to do next.

• False precision: Highly detailed forecasts can create an illusion of certainty, even when assumptions are fragile.

• Limited strategic relevance: FP&A risks being seen as a reporting function rather than a source of forward-looking insight.

In volatile environments, leadership does not need more reports. It needs faster understanding, clearer trade-offs, and confidence in the direction of travel.

The emergence of FP&A as a business navigator 

The emerging FP&A role is defined less by reporting cycles and more by continuous decision support.

As business navigators, FP&A teams are expected to:

• Anticipate potential outcomes rather than predict a single future

• Translate uncertainty into structured options and implications

• Connect operational drivers to financial impact in real time

• Support leadership with timely, decision-ready insight 

This does not mean abandoning rigour or financial discipline. Instead, it means applying those strengths to forward-looking questions rather than retrospective explanations.

In practice, the navigator role shifts FP&A’s focus from “What happened?” to “What could happen, and how should we respond?”

From accuracy to agility as a core value

One of the most significant mindset changes for FP&A is the recalibration of what “good” looks like.

Historically, accuracy has been the dominant metric. Forecasts were judged primarily on how close they came to actual results.

In volatile conditions, this standard becomes problematic. No forecast can reliably predict external shocks, policy changes, or rapid market swings. Holding FP&A to static accuracy metrics can inadvertently discourage useful, forward-looking analysis. 

Instead, agility becomes the more relevant measure of value:

• How quickly can finance model a change in assumptions?

• How easily can alternative scenarios be created and compared?

• How well can FP&A explain sensitivities and risk exposure?

• How effectively can finance support rapid decision-making?

The best FP&A teams are not those that predict the future perfectly, but those that help the business respond intelligently when the future changes.

New capabilities required of modern FP&A teams

This evolution places new demands on FP&A professionals themselves.

Technical accounting knowledge and financial modelling remain essential, but they are no longer sufficient. The navigator role requires a broader capability set:

• Scenario thinking: Understanding how different drivers interact and how changes propagate through P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow.

• Commercial insight: Interpreting financial outcomes in the context of business operations, markets, and strategy.

• Communication: Framing uncertainty clearly for non-finance leaders, without overwhelming them with complexity.

• Judgement: Knowing which assumptions matter most, and where precision adds value versus noise.

These skills are difficult to exercise within rigid, spreadsheet-driven planning environments. They require systems that support exploration, iteration, and transparency.

Why technology is a critical enabler, not the goal

The shift from reporter to navigator cannot be achieved through process change alone. Traditional FP&A tools were designed primarily for data aggregation and periodic reporting. They struggle to support the speed and flexibility required for modern decision-making.

Navigator-style FP&A depends on several foundational capabilities:

• Driver-based planning, so that assumptions are explicit and easily adjusted

• Rolling forecasts, to keep plans aligned with current conditions

• Integrated actuals and plans, enabling rapid plan-versus-actual analysis

• Real-time scenario modelling, allowing finance to test alternatives quickly

• Governance and transparency, so agility does not come at the expense of control

Without these capabilities, FP&A teams remain trapped in manual reconciliation and version control, limiting their ability to engage meaningfully with the business.

Importantly, technology should serve the role transformation, not define it. The objective is not automation for its own sake, but freeing FP&A capacity to focus on analysis, insight, and guidance.

The organisational impact of navigator-style FP&A

When FP&A successfully transitions into a business navigator role, the impact extends well beyond the finance function.

Leadership teams gain:

• Earlier visibility into emerging risks and opportunities

• Clearer understanding of trade-offs and sensitivities

• Greater confidence in decision-making under uncertainty

Business units benefit from finance partners who understand operational drivers and can translate strategy into financial implications.

Boards and investors receive more credible, transparent, forward-looking narratives, even when outcomes are uncertain.

In this sense, resilient planning is not just about surviving volatility. It becomes a competitive advantage, enabling organisations to adapt faster than their peers.

From role evolution to operating model change 

The transformation of FP&A from reporter to navigator is not a future aspiration. It is already underway across many organisations, driven by necessity rather than theory.

However, realising this shift requires more than new job descriptions or isolated process improvements. It demands a rethinking of how planning, forecasting, analysis, and consolidation work together as a coherent system.

FP&A leaders who recognise this early are better positioned to build teams, capabilities, and platforms that support resilience, not just efficiency.

In volatile times, the value of finance is no longer measured by how well it reports the past, but by how effectively it helps the business navigate what lies ahead.