The rise of planning in the mid-market

Finance departments in mid-market companies are planning more. Why? Because the market is volatile and competitive, and to stay profitable and keep customers coming back, business planning has become mandatory.

Manufacturers that supply industrial components or the distributors that move products across the country sit at the intersection of global supply chains, rising costs and evolving customer expectations. The easiest explanation as to why more product-based businesses are planning is they are vulnerable and running different scenarios keeps them agile and prepared.

How is the planning shift taking shape?

Finance teams in the mid-market are being asked to do more with less and in increasingly complex environments. Distributors are merging, meaning teams may need to work across multiple ERPs, collate different data sets and deal with currency fluctuations from global sourcing.

At the same time, tariffs and rising prices require constant monitoring. Finance help determine whether price increases are feasible or risk driving customers to competitors. This pressure from across the business is reshaping what’s expected of finance professionals.

Finance teams are also leading revamped budget processes. They are helping operations, sales and other departments understand what’s happening today and anticipate what might change tomorrow. Budgeting and forecasting are no longer annual tasks but continuous exercises that evolve as demand shifts.

Many mid-market companies run on ERP systems that collect valuable transactional data. When it comes to planning be it scenario modelling, headcount planning or rolling budgets, the ERP needs support. These activities often require additional software or extra work in spreadsheets.

A typical story comes from the Zeder Corporation, a merged entity in the automotive aftermarket sector. The finance team was under pressure to deliver more reports, but its ERP’s native reporting couldn’t deliver the level of insight needed.

Dean Nicolaides, who leads much of Zeder’s FP&A work, knew they needed a system that integrated with their ERP, automated reporting and was easy for others to use.

“I used to spend hours in Excel making sense of it all. Then when I’d attempt to repeat it the next month, often the spreadsheet might break,” says Dean.

Now, with Phocas, Dean provides executives with weekly dashboards covering customer categories, pricing trends and volumes. KPIs are updated automatically every Monday, and teams can dive into live data from multiple perspectives.

BI and FP&A is readily available

For decades, sophisticated business intelligence and financial planning and analysis tools were made for large enterprises. They required heaps of IT support and months-long implementations. That era is over.

BI and FP&A software has been democratized for every sized business to access. All-in-one platforms like Phocas have made it possible for mid-sized manufacturers, distributors and retailers to obtain companywide analytics and planning capabilities without unmanageable complexity or cost.

This democratization reflects a broader trend in that the challenges facing mid-market companies are every bit as complex as those facing larger organizations. These companies must still manage multi-entity structures, forecast cash flow and plan across business divisions. The difference is that they must do so with leaner teams and tighter margins.

Tools like Phocas allow finance departments to create live budgets, rolling forecasts and scenario models that reflect up to date business performance.

The benefits are tangible. Phocas’ customer insights show that

• 60% of finance teams cut their month-end close time
• 80% maintain live budgets throughout the month
• 90% have forecasts ready as soon as month-end closes
• 95% can visualize cross-functional performance metrics

These results represent a new standard for mid-market financial management. Finance teams are becoming the architects of continuous planning, enabling their businesses to stay agile in volatile markets.

Planning as a competitive advantage

In the past, planning was a once-a-year activity. Budgets were set, spreadsheets were circulated and people and departments inevitably diverged from the plan.

Finance teams that embrace connected planning can respond immediately to shifting conditions. When a key supplier raises prices now the impact can be modelled instantly. The ability to adjust assumptions and reforecast quickly gives mid-market businesses a comforting level of agility.

This shift to continuous planning requires finance leaders to champion planning as an all-year-round discipline. Planning that involves every department and aligns the entire business around shared and up-to-date data.

With accurate data flowing freely across departments, companies can make faster, better decisions and deal with the uncertainty. Sales teams can price competitively while maintaining margins. Operations teams can manage production more efficiently. In this way, planning becomes a strategic tool. It bridges the gap between financial visibility and operational performance, helping mid-market businesses move with confidence in uncertain times.

IMMY manufacturing case study

The story of IMMY, a fast-growing medical manufacturer in Oklahoma outlines the power of connected planning.

As IMMY prepared to expand internationally, the finance team struggled to get timely visibility into its financial data from Infor CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine). The company’s rapid growth had created new reporting demands and consolidating data manually across entities was becoming unmanageable.

The finance controller faced a familiar mid-market dilemma of hiring another staff member to manage reporting or invest in technology to automate it. IMMY chose automation and implementing Phocas to integrate directly with its ERP system.

The results were immediate. The team automated financial reporting, created live, consolidated views of performance and gained the insight needed to evaluate the company’s new acquisition. With data now available at their fingertips, the finance team could focus on helping the rest of the business understand the numbers.

Finance teams in manufacturing, distribution and retail already have the tools for connected planning. When they implement them, they can bring together data from all parts of the business for planning so they can gain the visibility needed to operate confidently in uncertain markets.