Yesterday, I was writing a planning season column for a series that I am writing. I was multi-tasking and listening to an ISA webinar hosted by Brendan Breen and Mark Gilham from Enable titled Finance for Future Leaders.

As I was writing and listening, I realized in my outline notes that I had not accounted enough on the role of Finance in Annual Planning Meetings. Your Finance (FP&A) team is often not as involved as they should be for many Industrial Channel leaders, as most planning meetings are sales and inventory focused.

That attitude of Finance being just a support arm is antiquated, and leading distributors and manufacturers have drastically changed how they are using their FP&A team in the Annual Planning process.

When Brendan Breen ISA CEO said on the webinar “Finance used to the department of No, but that has changed”. I switched from multi-tasking to taking notes, as I believe many Industrial Channel leaders still do not work with their FP&A team as true partners as well as they should.

Then right after Brendan’s spoke Mark Gilham shared this great tidbit.

“Finance does not want to just report the past anymore, we want to influence the future”

Mark shared further that FP&A teams are moving from just reporting the numbers (which is like being the historian for your business) to being integral partners with sales, operations, IT, and all aspects of the business.

Mark and Brendan shared much more on the webinar, and it was one of the best 50 minutes I have spent in the last month. As we are entering 2026 planning season and as I get to talk and work with top Industrial channel leaders it was a great reminder. Every Channel leader needs to have pre-planning meeting calls with the FP&A team for upcoming major planning meetings.

If you want to view the recording of the excellent webinar- which all ISA members can, it is now available on demand, just click on the image below.

Finance to many associates can be well…Intimidating. A balance sheet with line-item detail when you hand it to a salesperson can be as intimidating as an advanced calculus exam.

That is why I think it is important to help non-finance leaders work on their Financial Skills, and it is exciting to see that this Webinar was a preview of the ISA Fall Summit workshop designed to help non-financial leaders turn financial understanding into leadership impact. I will be attending this workshop Mark is leading at Fall Summit, as a refresher training is always helpful.

Suggested Ways to Integrate Finance in your Annual Planning Process

To borrow a phrase from Mark there are some simple ways for Finance “to influence the future”.

For every major Planning meeting with a top Distributor, Manufacturer (Rep), or End Customer sitting down and reviewing all the numbers you are presenting is table stakes. Ask your FP&A partner to confirm the validity of the Historical Numbers and help with forward looking numbers and proformas that project a future business outcome. Ask and challenge your FP&A team for “future influencing numbers”.

The list of future influencing numbers is very long. Some ideas to consider: you could look at customer buying trends (recency, frequency, monetary), backlog, inventory movement trends (A, B, C, D, S) of specific lines. If you are manufacturer you could look at that distributor’s purchasing trends using your inventory classification methods and present future 2026 projections. Tactical numbers like the above when presented, lead to great business discussions and outcomes.

As I shared the list of future looking number is pages long of what you might be able to do projection wise. The key is to find those FP&A numbers that will cause a partner to grow their business and share with you.

Have a Finance Leader in every major partner planning meeting (this may only be feasible for your Top 10%, but that top 10 is likely 80% of your business). I have for most big meetings asked a FP&A leader to present all the key numbers. That CFO -COO – FP&A Director title carries weight and credibility. When they present a number, the crowd accepts it as fact.

It all starts with a mindset of asking smart people what they think we should do, and then listening. There are likely no smarter people than the team sitting in FP&A, so 2026 is the year to use that expertise as much as possible.

As always, we appreciate your comments and support. If you have specific questions, please just reach out to me directly. It’s planning season and I am happy to share ideas.