eBook

What is the
Profitability
Analytics
Framework?
Overview of the profitability
analytics framework

profitability-analytics.org
INTRODUCTION

PACE's Profitability Analytics (PA) Framework

is a process designed to produce high-quality,
internal decision-support information that
supports decision making throughout the
organization – from the C-suite to the shop
floor and direct to customer contact points. It
is built on a holistic view of revenue
management, managerial costing, and
investment management within an
organization.

The PA Framework goes well beyond

traditional financial accounting, reporting, and
analysis. It incorporates modern revenue
management techniques, advanced
managerial costing focused on internal
decision support, and new views of
investments as both tangible and intangible.

The PA Framework is built to support and

enhance the strategic planning framework of
the organization and ensure management
accountants and finance professionals are
actively engaged in the creation of strategic
plans by providing data, information,
analytics, and insights well beyond traditional
financial reporting.

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The PACE PA Framework is designed to
support internal decision making within the
organization’s larger strategic risk
management envelope.

Management accountants have an essential

role supporting internal customers
throughout their organization in order to
optimally achieve strategic objectives.

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THREE STAGES

The Profitability Analytics Framework is

composed of three primary stages:

Formulate Strategy - where an

organization establishes its plan for
identifying and addressing its market(s)
and for mobilizing its investments and
resources to meet the demands created by
that plan.
Validate Strategy – where causal models
are developed that directly enable the
evaluation of strategy. These models
employ the principle of causality to
quantify, in operational and monetary
terms, the revenue and cost impacts of an
organization’s strategy, and then track the
execution and performance of that
strategy.

"The Profitability Analytics Framework is a strategic management

framework that starts with the formulation of an organization’s
strategy based on its vision and mission."
- Raef Lawson, Executive Director, PACE

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Execute Strategy - involves decision

making that employs the outputs of the
causal models to provide the organization’s
decision makers with the accurate and
relevant information they need to make
economically sound decisions as they
execute and adapt tactics to meet strategic
goals.

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THEMES

These three major stages, as developed in the

Framework, address a number of core themes:

The importance of understanding and

actively participating in all business
operations.
The importance of internal and external
data and using data objectively.
The importance of using analytics that
reflect the reality of operations.
The importance of effectively monetizing
processes and resources.
The importance of planning and
forecasting.
The importance of evaluating decisions,
measures, targets, and strategy.
The importance of feedback loops to gauge
progress against stated strategic objectives
so that the appropriate, adaptive actions
and corrective actions can be taken.

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THREE ELEMENTS

Each of the three stages of the Profitability

Analytics Framework holistically integrates
three elements that determine an
organization’s profitability:

Markets and Revenues - Revenue

management is a key management issue,
often the core strategic focus, for most
organizations. A market and revenue
model enables an organization to
effectively assess its market and optimally
segment customers, which is key to
aligning resources and activities in order to
deliver the right product at the right price
at the right time to the right customer.

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Operations and Costs - Operational

planning determines how to meet expected
marketing demands on the organization’s
resources and processes as determined by
capacity, capability, and operational
fundamentals.
The critical success element of an effective
managerial cost system is that it represents
core causal connections across the
organization’s strategic structure.
Executives,managers, supervisors, teams,
and employees need a clear and confident
view of cost drivers to make decisions that
contribute to optimally achieving the
organization’s strategic objectives and
enhancing long-term value.

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Resources and Investment - The

organization’s investment management
model, as defined in the PA Framework,
describes all resources required to
maintain and grow an organization as a
value creating entity in the future.

Today’s dynamic, creative, and technology

driven business environment requires an
expanded focus beyond traditional capital
investment analysis and justification,
embracing intangible investments that are
increasingly the core drivers of value
creation, including brand capital, human
resources, and intellectual property.

"Investment strategy still needs to consider traditional capital

investment needs, but must also consider investments in brand,
human capital, innovation, and data/analytics, and any other
capabilities needed by your organization."
- Larry White, Director, PACE

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ANALYTICS

Analytics is the foundation for the Profitability

Analytics Framework. It provides a competitive
edge for commercial companies and deep
insights for public sector government agencies
to better serve their stakeholders and
constituents. Once a “nice to have,” applying
analytics is now mission-critical.

As described above, the Profitability Analytics

Framework has three primary stages:
Formulate, Validate, and Execute the Strategy.
Analytics has a role in each stage.

For strategy formulation, analytics

provides visibility and insights for the
strategy to help answer the question
“Where do we want to go?”

"The strategic value of cost accounting, traditionally the focus of

management accounting, is only meaningful in the context of capturing
analytics to support the management of revenue and the deployment
of investments to strengthen profitability."
Monte Swain, Director, PACE

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For strategy validation, analytics leverages

the tools in a data scientist’s tool box (e.g.,
data collection, cleaning, analyzing,
interpreting) to evaluate the three
elements of the organization’s profitability:
Revenues, Costs, and Investments.
For strategy execution, analytics helps
answer the next question, “How will we get
there?” Analytics helps evaluate, select,
and prioritize the actions to implement the
strategy. Analytics then captures feedback
on implementation to guide and tighten
the execution on strategy.

“Increasingly, the primary source of attaining a competitive

advantage will be an organization’s competence in mastering all
flavors of analytics (e.g., regression, correlation, segmentation). If
your management team is analytics-impaired, then your
organization is at risk.”
- Gary Cokins, Director, PACE

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BENEFITS

Use of the PA Framework helps explore issues

such as the management accountant’s role in:

Defining and evaluating customers,

markets, and competition to develop
market strategies
Defining and adjusting internal resources,
capacities, capabilities, and competencies
to meet strategic goals
Creating and using causal, nonfinancial,
operational models to support all of the
organization’s value-creating activities.

"To remain relevant, accountants must do more than simply

measure and preserve value; they must become indispensable,
value-adding members of an organization’s management team."
- Doug Hicks, Director, PACE

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Causal financial modeling that applies

principles of causality in revenues and
costs in order to clearly reflect economic
reality for internal decision support.
New approaches to forecasting and
planning for internal decision support
based directly on the organization’s
strategy, processes, and resources.
A more holistic approach for improving
financial metrics and plans to manage,
evaluate, and improve production and
service delivery, customer value and
profitability, and tangible and intangible
investments.
A pathway for FP&A functions to expand
their partnerships and develop more
systematic approaches to modeling and
collecting data for internal decision
support.
The measurement of outcomes, in both
operational and financial terms, is to
isolate and understand causes and effects,
which enables effective adaptive and
corrective actions.

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Now that you know more about the PACE

Profitability Analytics Framework, we invite
you to explore the Profitability Analytics
Center of Excellence Library for podcasts,
webcasts, case studies, and articles.

Contact us: [email protected]

Website: profitability-analytics.org

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granted provided appropriate attribution is given.

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