Latest news with #FP&A
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Vena Once Again Named SPARK Leader in the SPARK Matrix Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis 2025
Vena Copilot agentic AI solution noted as a major strength as Vena reaffirms its leadership in cloud FP&A TORONTO, July 16, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, has been recognized as a SPARK Leader in the SPARK Matrix Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis 2025, ranking again as one of the top two providers by technological excellence. This continued recognition from QKS, based on its in-depth analysis of cloud financial planning and analysis vendors and its industry knowledge, signifies Vena's ongoing leadership as a future-forward, AI-focused platform designed to scale with the growing responsibilities of the office of strategic finance. Vena placed among the leaders in both the technological excellence and customer impact rankings, with Vena Copilot for FP&A standing out as one of the major differentiators. Vena Copilot, built from the start as an agentic-AI-capable solution, orchestrates the operations of both the Vena Analytics and Vena Reporting agents, with additional agents planned for release in the near future. Most recently, Vena Copilot received Microsoft Teams support, bringing agentic AI directly into financial professionals' everyday workflow. "Vena's second straight year of Technological Excellence leadership is all the more impressive given the increased competitiveness and need for technological differentiation in the cloud FP&A space. We designed our entire platform, Vena Copilot included, for maximum flexibility to accommodate both changes in the technology available and the role of strategic finance alike, and that adaptability is a major reason our customers come to and stay with Vena," said Hugh Cumming, CTO, Vena. "We're honored by QKS' recognition and plan to use their findings to continue fueling our innovations to help customers navigate this market volatility and go from good to great." Vena's technological and operational flexibility positions it well to lead the next generation of AI-augmented, autonomous enterprise performance management. With a vast library of native integrations and API connectors, QKS writes the platform has "deep, bi-directional data connectivity across ERP and CRM ecosystems," connecting finance to other strategic functions and easily ingesting data for improved AI-driven insights, analysis and reporting across industries. Furthermore, Vena's extended planning (xP&A) and Beyond Planning solutions give the platform additional use cases, offering more strategic functions, such as operations, the same smooth experience. "We are proud to acknowledge Vena as a SPARK Leader in the Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis 2025," said Akhilesh Vundavalli, Senior Analyst at QKS Group. "Vena's top ranking for Technology Excellence emphasizes its strong AI implementation via solutions like Vena Copilot, its continued focus on robust integrations with the Microsoft ecosystem and other key enterprise software platforms, and its readiness for the new cross-functional age of finance." From high-growth startups to global enterprises, finance and operations teams are turning to Vena to unify their planning in a single platform that's fast to deploy, flexible to use and powered by the tools finance teams already trust—Excel, Power BI, Teams and more. With agentic AI, real-time analytics and a seamless Microsoft-native user experience, Vena empowers finance leaders to go beyond the numbers and make confident, insight-driven decisions that move their business forward. To learn how companies are planning with confidence using Vena, visit our Customer Stories. About Vena Vena is the only agentic AI-powered FP&A platform purpose-built to harness the full power of the Microsoft technology ecosystem for finance teams everywhere. Vena amplifies Microsoft's world-leading productivity tools, cloud technology and AI innovation to make FP&A, operational planning and adjacent strategic processes more flexible, efficient and intelligent. Thousands of the world's leading companies rely on Vena to power their planning. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts Media Contact:For immediate inquiries or more details regarding our latest business news, please contact: Jonathan PaulVice President, Content Marketingjpaul@
National Post
6 hours ago
- Business
- National Post
Vena Once Again Named SPARK Leader in the SPARK Matrix Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis 2025
Article content Article content Article content TORONTO — Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, has been recognized as a SPARK Leader in the SPARK Matrix Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis 2025, ranking again as one of the top two providers by technological excellence. This continued recognition from QKS, based on its in-depth analysis of cloud financial planning and analysis vendors and its industry knowledge, signifies Vena's ongoing leadership as a future-forward, AI-focused platform designed to scale with the growing responsibilities of the office of strategic finance. Article content Vena placed among the leaders in both the technological excellence and customer impact rankings, with Vena Copilot for FP&A standing out as one of the major differentiators. Vena Copilot, built from the start as an agentic-AI-capable solution, orchestrates the operations of both the Vena Analytics and Vena Reporting agents, with additional agents planned for release in the near future. Most recently, Vena Copilot received Microsoft Teams support, bringing agentic AI directly into financial professionals' everyday workflow. Article content 'Vena's second straight year of Technological Excellence leadership is all the more impressive given the increased competitiveness and need for technological differentiation in the cloud FP&A space. We designed our entire platform, Vena Copilot included, for maximum flexibility to accommodate both changes in the technology available and the role of strategic finance alike, and that adaptability is a major reason our customers come to and stay with Vena,' said Hugh Cumming, CTO, Vena. 'We're honored by QKS' recognition and plan to use their findings to continue fueling our innovations to help customers navigate this market volatility and go from good to great.' Article content Vena's technological and operational flexibility positions it well to lead the next generation of AI-augmented, autonomous enterprise performance management. With a vast library of native integrations and API connectors, QKS writes the platform has 'deep, bi-directional data connectivity across ERP and CRM ecosystems,' connecting finance to other strategic functions and easily ingesting data for improved AI-driven insights, analysis and reporting across industries. Furthermore, Vena's extended planning (xP&A) and Beyond Planning solutions give the platform additional use cases, offering more strategic functions, such as operations, the same smooth experience. Article content 'We are proud to acknowledge Vena as a SPARK Leader in the Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis 2025,' said Akhilesh Vundavalli, Senior Analyst at QKS Group. 'Vena's top ranking for Technology Excellence emphasizes its strong AI implementation via solutions like Vena Copilot, its continued focus on robust integrations with the Microsoft ecosystem and other key enterprise software platforms, and its readiness for the new cross-functional age of finance.' Article content From high-growth startups to global enterprises, finance and operations teams are turning to Vena to unify their planning in a single platform that's fast to deploy, flexible to use and powered by the tools finance teams already trust—Excel, Power BI, Teams and more. With agentic AI, real-time analytics and a seamless Microsoft-native user experience, Vena empowers finance leaders to go beyond the numbers and make confident, insight-driven decisions that move their business forward. To learn how companies are planning with confidence using Vena, visit our Customer Stories. Article content About Vena Article content Vena is the only agentic AI-powered FP&A platform purpose-built to harness the full power of the Microsoft technology ecosystem for finance teams everywhere. Vena amplifies Microsoft's world-leading productivity tools, cloud technology and AI innovation to make FP&A, operational planning and adjacent strategic processes more flexible, efficient and intelligent. Thousands of the world's leading companies rely on Vena to power their planning. For more information, visit Article content Article content Article content
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How EY's finance transformation team is approaching AI strategy
This story was originally published on To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily newsletter. As finance leaders face pressure to modernize and deliver ROI on their spending on technology and consulting, EY's finance transformation team is focused on putting emerging technologies to work not just for clients, but inside the firm itself. The team, led by Deirdre Ryan, global finance transformation leader, is playing a dual role: Helping CFOs navigate AI adoption while also piloting those same tools internally across EY's finance and consulting functions. In a recent interview inspired by her session at the Gartner Finance Executive Conference last month, Ryan explains how EY is using agentic AI to reshape FP&A workflows and why being 'client zero' is critical to building credibility in the market. She also discusses how CFOs can avoid repeating past mistakes from automation efforts, what it takes to lead a finance organization through transformation and how to do so with clarity, purpose and psychological safety. Global Finance Transformation Leader, EY Notable previous employers: Deloitte Dontech Dun & Bradstreet This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. DEIRDRE RYAN: We feel very strongly that we have to be client zero. If we're going to advise clients on new technologies, we need to understand them ourselves and use them in real scenarios. We created a platform called EYQ. It's essentially a private environment where our people can interact with large language models securely. We made it accessible on laptops and mobile devices, and it's helped our consultants build hands-on understanding of the tools we're asking clients to adopt. As of recently, we've had over 150,000 consultants using it globally. It's one of the largest private LLMs in the world that EY developed in-house. In finance specifically, we've been building and piloting an agentic AI solution for FP&A. It looks like a normal dashboard, but what makes it powerful is that as actuals come in, it generates AI-driven insights automatically. That's helpful, but the real impact comes from scenario planning. It's built on driver-based forecasting, so we've identified the variables most correlated with forecast accuracy. You can adjust those and instantly see how the outlook changes. It goes even further. We've modeled it so that there are three AI agents working like analysts, with a manager agent that synthesizes and returns the best answer. You can ask something like, 'What would a one percent drop in GDP do to our forecast?' and it does the work. It's not removing human oversight — someone still has to take action — but it's changing the way FP&A work gets done. One client saw it and said, 'I have an army of silent FP&A analysts now.' That stuck with me because that is where the function is headed. That brings up another important point. Psychological safety is something we talk about a lot. When tools like this are introduced, it's natural for teams to wonder what it means for them. They may worry their work is being replaced or question what their future looks like in the function. This is where leadership matters. People entering the workforce today don't want to spend three days in Excel. They want to work with tools that help them think and act strategically. If you're in FP&A and you're given the choice between spending days building a model in spreadsheets or using agentic AI to get that answer instantly and then focusing your time on what to do about it, people are going to choose the latter. That's how you retain talent. If finance doesn't evolve, it risks losing its best people. So yes, we're advising clients on these tools, but we're also living it internally. We're applying it ourselves, and we're navigating the same leadership, talent and change management conversations that our clients are. That's what being client zero means. It's difficult for CFOs today because they still play a very traditional role. They must protect and preserve the assets of the organization and mitigate risk, but now they're being asked in a meaningful way to drive innovation within finance and across the enterprise. They need to understand disruptive technology well enough to make smart capital allocation decisions and guide the business forward. So, CFOs have to start getting their hands dirty. A lot of people I meet have seen demos or presentations, but haven't used the tools themselves. You have to understand the capabilities. Start small — maybe it's a proof of concept to help your team come up the learning curve — but that gives you insight into what these technologies can do. And from there, you can ask the bigger question: How do we apply this in a meaningful way to our finance organization? That's why our team tells CFOs to not just look at the tech, but think about the end game. What do you want your finance function to look like once you've integrated these tools? You have to do some things in parallel, which is tough because CFOs are already being asked to do so much. But this is one of those areas where you can't afford to take a one-track approach. You don't want to repeat what happened with robot process automation. Very few companies realized the value they expected. It became very democratized — people used it to automate a few hours of work here or there — but it didn't lead to large-scale transformation. That's the risk with AI and generative AI. The technology is unbelievably powerful, but without a strategy, you end up with fragmented efforts. You have to ask: Where is the puck going to be, and how do we get there? That means setting a clear end state, helping your finance team come up the learning curve, and avoiding what I call death by a thousand cuts — a little pilot here, a tool there, but no cohesive vision. So, yes, you want experimentation, and maybe that's informal — sharing a cool use case in a meeting. But it also needs to be backed by a very intentional strategy tied to how your finance function delivers value. For this, there are two big buckets I talk about with CFOs. One is productivity, and yes, you can absolutely drive productivity using these tools. We have great examples of that. And honestly, any of my competitors could give you the same 200 use cases for technology within finance. So I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but many of those use cases have been around for a long time. So if you're going to pursue productivity, you need to ask where you're going to get the biggest ROI. What's going to move the needle? The second bucket, and this is where I think the real value is, is decision insight. That's about using these tools to provide better analysis that helps your peers in the C-suite make smarter, faster decisions. And while that's much harder to quantify, I think it's equally important. Sometimes I ask CFOs to imagine a scenario. Let's pretend your data is perfect, it comes in on time and everything is consistently defined. Of course, that never happens, but let's just pretend. What is the kind of analysis you'd want to do on demand that could give you a competitive advantage? And it's interesting, because many CFOs haven't even had the [capacity] to think that way. They're so tied to traditional metrics like revenue and profitability that they haven't had the chance to ask, 'If I had access to better data and AI tools that let me explore it faster, what decisions could I make differently?' That kind of thinking is where AI can really change the game for finance. I think it depends on what you mean by 'a single source of truth'. We all know CFOs need to ensure the financial statements are accurate. And with technology of all types, there has to be a level of trust that the data is producing results that fairly represent the performance of the organization. Do I know any company whose data is 100% perfect all the time? No. Especially not large, acquisitive organizations. But what I always tell clients is, you have to prioritize. Not every data point needs to be perfect, but the ones that drive the most value do need to be consistently defined and captured across the enterprise. You could spend the next 10 or 20 years cleaning data, and it still wouldn't be perfect. The better approach is to identify the data that will drive meaningful analysis and ensure that it's reliable. That way, when you present insights to the executive team, you have confidence in the underlying information and the decisions it supports. It's about being intentional. Know what value you're trying to unlock, and focus on the data that supports that value. Recommended Reading How PwC's tax team is using agentic AI Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Indian Express
18-06-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Gurugram man says he needs Rs 7.5 lakh a month ‘just to breathe', the Internet reacts: ‘Mumbai is better'
A LinkedIn post sharing the hidden financial pressure of living a luxury life in Gurugram has taken the Internet by storm. Shared by Vaibhav J, a resident of one of the city's upscale neighbourhoods, the post is a candid breakdown of what it truly costs to 'just exist' in such an elite setting. 'I own a house in Gurgaon, India. Translation: I need ₹7.5 lakh/month just to breathe,' Vaibhav wrote. He went on to share details of his monthly expenses, explaining how the cost of living extends far beyond just housing. 'Here's what you really signed up for: ₹2.08 lakh EMI for a ₹3 crore house. ₹12,000 per month maintenance for the fountain. ₹60,000 car EMI—because you can't roll up in a Swift. ₹65,000 per month for IB school for kids. ₹30,000 per month for 'foreign trip proof-of-life'. ₹30,000 monthly for domestic staff—cook, maid, driver. ₹20,000 for club nights and dinners you don't even enjoy. ₹12,000 for grooming and dressing 'DLF Phase 5 ready'. ₹10,000-plus on random purchases. ₹15,000 for birthday gifts and wedding envelopes—a 'fake smiles tax',' he wrote. The expenses add up to a staggering Rs 5 lakh per month, and Vaibhav further breaks it down what that means in pre-tax income terms. 'Now factor in income tax at 30 percent. To spend ₹5 lakh a month, you need to earn ₹7.5 lakh (₹90 lakh/year pre-tax). We had neither done savings nor bought insurance. And I haven't even eaten yet.' Concluding the post, he wrote, 'That's not top one percent income—that's top 0.1 percent burn rate.' See the post here: The post quickly gained traction, prompting several social media users to compare Gurugram with Mumbai and Bengaluru. 'Mumbai still better,' a user wrote. 'FP&A bloke alert, lots of lavish spending found,' another user commented. 'Over a decade ago I was in DLF Phase 2 near JMD arcade and then moved to Phase-5 near Amex. Things weren't tht expensive back then,' a third user noted.
National Post
03-06-2025
- Business
- National Post
Vena Earns 100% Product Satisfaction Rating and 55 Leading Rankings in BARC Planning Survey 25
Article content TORONTO — Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today shared it has been named a top-ranked or leading product in 55 categories across four peer groups in The Planning Survey 25 conducted by the Business Application Research Center ( BARC). With 18 top ranks and 37 leading positions, Vena continues to stand out as a customer-centric, technologically advanced leader in the FP&A software space. Article content Survey participants reported exceptional results with Vena: Article content 100% are satisfied with Vena.* 94% are satisfied with Vena's performance.* 97% achieved a better quality of planning results with Vena. 97% increased the transparency and traceability of planning with Vena. 97% achieved more precise/detailed planning with Vena. Article content 'Vena's top-tier rankings in key performance indicators such as project success, price to value and customer satisfaction underscore its commitment to excellence and customer-centric innovation,' said Dr. Christian Fuchs, Senior Analyst for Data & Analytics at BARC. 'The strong customer feedback in our survey reinforces Vena's ability to deliver rapid, effective implementations while maintaining very high satisfaction levels.' Article content A number of surveyed customers cited Vena's deep synergy with the Microsoft technology ecosystem, particularly its integration with Microsoft Excel, as a major strength. The 'seamless' Excel integration played a key role in Vena's top ranking in the ease-of-use category, outperforming the peer group average by almost two full points. In addition, Vena's recent launch of workflows embedded directly within Microsoft Teams continues to enhance productivity and collaboration, enabling finance professionals to plan, report and share insights where they already work. Vena also ranked as the top provider for user experience in the Integrated Products for Planning and BI & Analytics peer group, which combines scores for self-service, flexibility, ease of use and performance satisfaction, underscoring the platform's overall usability and strength. Article content 'These recognitions highlight our commitment to delivering innovative, high-impact solutions that empower our customers with the flexibility, insights and support they need to plan with confidence. We're especially proud of our rankings across price to value, customer satisfaction, project success, sales experience and implementer support—all on par or even ahead of the biggest players in this space,' said Hugh Cumming, Chief Technology Officer at Vena. 'From launching the first FP&A-specific AI agents to expanding our footprint through Microsoft Azure Marketplace availability, we're dedicated to delivering solutions that meet FP&A professionals where they are.' Article content The Planning Survey 25's validation of Vena's leading FP&A technology adds to a number of recent accolades, including: Article content The Planning Survey 25 is based on the world's largest survey of planning software users conducted from November 2024 to February 2025, with 1,187 respondents and analysis of 19 products. It evaluates user feedback on 33 criteria (KPIs), such as Business Benefits, Project Success, Customer Satisfaction and more. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Article content
