Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is undergoing a transformative evolution in the public sector. With rising fiscal pressures, demand volatility, and a growing need for transparency, modern public bodies must reinvent how they plan, forecast, and steward public funds.

This article explores a future-facing FP&A Target Operating Model (TOM) for large public sector organisations—designed to deliver better outcomes while reducing the burden on taxpayers.

By embedding AI into forecasting, scenario modeling, and driver-based planning, CFOs can unlock agility, accuracy, and automation. But it requires intent—not just tech.

Cloud Isn’t the Silver Bullet for FP&A—But AI Might Be

While cloud ERP promises flexibility, agility, and scale, it rarely delivers enterprise-grade FP&A without targeted investment in data, operating model reform, and decision intelligence.

This is where AI-enabled FP&A comes in.

By embedding AI into forecasting, scenario modeling, and driver-based planning, CFOs can unlock agility, accuracy, and automation. But it requires intent—not just tech.

As the SAP ecosystem evolves, businesses still running SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) are at a crossroads. The future lies in cloud-native platforms—and the natural path forward leads to SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) for planning, and SAP Group Reporting for consolidation.

SAP is stepping into the AI era with SAP Joule, its embedded AI copilot designed to revolutionize how businesses work with enterprise data. First introduced in 2023 and now fully unveiled at Sapphire 2025, Joule is positioned as the core digital assistant across SAP’s cloud portfolio—and now, even beyond it.

The Rise of Autonomous Decision-Making in ERP

By 2030, ERP systems will shift from merely augmenting human decisions to independently executing them—responsibly, transparently, and adaptively. Advances in AI-enabled decision-making will unlock ERP’s full autonomy, driven by these key capabilities:

Read Alisdair’s latest newsletter covering

- SAPs strategy and how they are nailing it
- SAP Sapphire 2025 review

A lengthy appraisal for customers and the wider ecosystem alike.

Data Swamp, it’s a nice way to describe the mismanaged data and data assets created by complex connected organisations over the last three decades of industry 3.0

Tariffs and Trade Wars, I don’t think any one reading this would have thought we would be in the middle of a major world trade war……. but we are. This post is not to question the wisdom of #POTUS, but to look at SAP Global Trade Services (GTS), a rock steady SAP product that until the last couple of weeks goes relatively un-noticed

All the Gear and No Idea: Why 85% of AI Investments Fail

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the business world’s latest obsession.

Companies are pouring billions into AI tools, hiring data scientists, and implementing machine learning models in the hope of unlocking innovation and efficiency.

17th March 2025, London, England. We are pleased to confirm that Dragon ERP CEO Katie Lynch has been listed as a Top 100 global transformation leader.