Achei interessante
http://www.afponline.org/pub/res/news/Fueled_by_Forecasting__Q_A_with_Matthijs_Schot_of_Maersk.htmlFueled by Forecasting: Q&A with Matthijs Schot of Maersk
By Ira Apfel
Published: 2015-02-10
Share on email Share on print Share on linkedin Share on twitter Share on facebook Share on google More Sharing Services
Plummeting oil prices have dramatically affected the outlook of many energy companies. To get a better sense of how one such firm is coping, AFP spoke with Matthijs Schot, general manager of performance and analysis, A.P. Møller Maersk Group Copenhagen Area, Capital Region, Denmark Financial Services. In addition to his FP&A duties for the $47-billion, 89,000-employee multinational, Schot serves on the taskforce of the 2015 AFP FP&A Leadership Summit, May 19-20, in Amsterdam.
AFP: Tell me a little bit about your job responsibilities.
Matthijs Schot: I work in the corporate FP&A group where we are responsible for the rolling forecast and the capital allocation on the group level. We also do quarterly review sessions with the business unit CFOs to discuss their business unit performance and their latest 5 quarter rolling forecast which we consolidate to get a group forecast.
AFP: What do you see is your biggest challenge right now in 2015?
Matthijs Schot: Well, I think our group’s biggest challenge is also our biggest opportunity, it’s the volatility in our business environment’s macroeconomics like oil prices and GDP growth. We are one of the biggest players in global trade and also a mid sizes player in the upstream oil market with Maersk Oil and Maersk Drilling. The volatility in both GDP growth and oil prices give us challenges in forecasting and allocating resources, but with our rolling forecast we should be able to deliver better returns than other businesses that still work with annual budgets who cannot, due to the lack of agility, adapt to changes in the business environment.
AFP: Did your company foresee such a plummet in oil prices? It’s astounding how low prices have fallen, and I wonder what companies that are involved in oil, what they’re doing to cope with this?
Matthijs Schot: I don’t have an official view on that but I don’t think a lot of people in the industry had a high probability assigned to such a dramatic scenario. We run various risk scenarios for our group including volatility in the oil prices, but with a low probability for such a dramatic drop as we have seen materialize. We specialize in ultra-deep water offshore projects which have a very long lead time, this means that is some impact but most projects will still make good business sense in the long run. Of course this doesn’t take away that we as a business need to react to the changes in the external environment, we are also a supplier of drilling rigs and offshore supply vessels where we are dependent on third-party contract also there we have seen impact on rates and contracts but also here it's important to see the long term business case. Also in other business units we benefit from a lower oil price as we consume bunker fuel and this works as a natural hedge offsetting some of the down side in the oil related businesses.
AFP: Can you go explain a little bit more how do they help them, how does having a rolling forecast help mitigate some of these challenges for you?
Matthijs Schot: We do these quarterly rolling forecasts. So, every quarter, we sit together with the business units, look at their business unit performance, their last four quarters, and we look at the next four quarters forecast. This allows us throughout the year to make adjustments to how we allocate capital or which projects we will or will not do or even add new projects to take advantage of medium term opportunities. If you were stuck into a fixed yearly budget you would not have this flexibility, nor would you optimize your capital as generally people will build buffers in their budget and end up spending budget monies in the end of the year to ensure their budget for next year is not cut if they don't spend everything.
We practice something like dynamic capital allocation. If a business unit asked for 10 projects and all 10 meet certain criteria, we will agree to those 10 projects. But if the business circumstances throughout the year change, we might not fund all those projects and move some of the monies to other business units projects instead to take advantage of opportunities there. So, it gives us much more agility throughout the year to make changes to our business and therefore deliver better value to our customers and our shareholders.
AFP: What do you hope to gain from attending the FP&A Summit? And also, why did you decide to be in the taskforce to help plan it? That’s a big undertaking.
Matthijs Schot: FP&A interests me so that is why I volunteered for the task force. Being part of the FP&A summit task force I hope to get even more information out of the whole experience. I hope to get ideas on how to increase the value creation in FP&A, and get insight to how other companies do their financial planning and learn from their best practices. One specific topic of interest of mine is the latest trends in FP&A and what other companies are doing in that area and how they use it to create value or get an advantage.
