Budget planning: 3 mistakes to avoid in service companies

In service companies, performance relies on the accuracy of forecasts and the ability to adjust decisions quickly. Yet many organizations continue to repeat structural mistakes that connected planning can now help avoid. Analysis and insights from Beyond Plans.

Mistake #1: Working in silos

Data silos occur when financial, HR, and operational forecasts are built independently, without a shared model or common assumptions.

This is one of the most frequent mistakes in service companies. Finance, HR, and operations each work with their own tools, assumptions, and schedules. Figures diverge, trade-offs multiply, and confidence in the indicators erodes.

Connected planning addresses this exact fragmentation. It allows data to be unified in a common environment accessible to all stakeholders, relying on a single, up-to-date version of the figures.

This consistency facilitates collaboration and accelerates decision-making — a key challenge in a business model where every FTE counts.

Key takeaway: without shared data between finance, HR, and operations, budget planning remains fragile and hard to act on.

Mistake #2: Treating the budget as a fixed document

A fixed budget is one that is created once a year, without the ability to adjust continuously in response to changes in activity.

In a sector characterized by variable demand, margin pressure, and rapid workforce changes, planning must become a dynamic process.

Testing different scenarios — growth, slowdown, cost inflation, turnover — is now essential to safeguard profitability. Yet many management teams remain constrained by rigid spreadsheets and the burden of manual adjustments.

With Anaplan, scenario modeling becomes instant: a change in assumption automatically updates key financial, HR, and operational indicators. This shift to continuous planning represents a profound cultural change in performance management.

Key takeaway: a budget that cannot be adjusted during the year quickly becomes outdated in a service company.

Mistake #3: Underestimating margin management

Margin management involves analyzing profitability at a granular enough level — project, team, or activity — to quickly identify imbalances.

In service companies, profitability is not determined at a global level but at the project level. Relying solely on consolidated indicators often masks contrasting situations: some activities temporarily offset the underperformance of others.

Connected planning enables a detailed view of margins by cross-referencing HR, financial, and commercial data. Management gains near-real-time visibility into potential deviations, without waiting for monthly closings, and can act on the right levers: daily rates, subcontracting, resource allocation, or career paths.

Key takeaway: managing margins only at a global level prevents timely action on projects that are truly at risk.

Connecting strategy to operations: the role of Anaplan

Anaplan is a connected planning platform that allows modeling, simulating, and managing performance by linking finance, HR, and operations within a single model.

Faced with the limitations of traditional tools — unstable spreadsheets, rigid ERPs, lack of collaboration — Anaplan provides a more agile framework to make forecasts reliable and connect strategy to operational decisions.

The CoPlanner module, powered by artificial intelligence, enhances this approach by providing:

• automatic detection of early warning signals,

• budget adjustment recommendations,

• continuous learning of models from real data.

For Beyond Plans, technology remains a lever. Value is created through the teams’ ability to understand, interpret, and act on these recommendations to make informed decisions.

Beyond Plans: guidance that transforms planning

Deploying Anaplan is one step. Embedding it sustainably into practices is another.

Beyond Plans relies on a proven methodology combining business expertise and platform mastery:

• deep understanding of finance, HR, and operations challenges,

• design of clear, scalable, and governed models,

• skills transfer to teams,

• close support until full autonomy.

This pragmatic approach turns planning into a lever for agility and performance management, rather than an additional administrative burden.