Dr. Abhijit Phadnis worked as the Chief Operating Officer of UBS Investment Bank in India and as Head – Finance, Operations and Administration with Credit Issues. He also served on the board of a leading co-operative bank. Abhijit has experience in manufacturing and consulting sectors in a wide variety of interesting engagements.

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Is Budgeting Merely ‘Number
Crunching’ - MyCFO India
Dr. Abhijit Phadnis worked as the Chief Operating Officer of
UBS Investment Bank in India and as Head – Finance,
Operations and Administration with Credit Issues. He also
served on the board of a leading co-operative bank. Abhijit
has experience in manufacturing and consulting sectors in
a wide variety of interesting engagements

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Abhijit’s academic record is quite exemplary in the
accounting & finance domain with high ranks in all the
professional examinations such as CWA (1983), CA (1984),
CS (1987) and CFA (1989). His all-India ranks were 2nd, 11th,
1st and 3rd respectively. He was recently awarded a PhD by
IIT Bombay for his pioneering work on ‘Factors influencing
investments into Indian states.’ Abhijit’s teaching experience
also spans over 26 years. He has participated in over 250
executive education interventions. Abhijit has in the past
served on the Academic Council and Board of Governors of
the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India. Abhijit
has devoted significant time for non-profit activities.
Budgeting is a hotly debated tool. There are companies that
swear by it. There are companies that have long
abandoned it citing the dynamic nature of this world. Its
proponents emphasize use of budgeting as a strategic,
planning and control tool. Its opponents reject it as a ritual
with huge costs and little benefits. Any tool is useful if we
engage its heart and soul. At the soul of budgeting is the trio
of communication, involvement and ownership. Often this
soul is completely forgotten and then budget circulars,
budgeting calendar and deadlines take over. Finance
professionals are busy crunching numbers throughout the
year. Six months before the year begins, they begin their
work on the budget, three months into the year there is an
updated budget, in the middle of the year there is a mid-
term review, the rituals go on but we hardly find any
involvement of and communication with the people who

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are at the forefront executing the company’s strategy in the
operations and market place. They hardly get to know what
the firm’s strategic thinking is and how it is panning out. The
question of seeking their views and involvement just does
not arise at all! The ego at senior levels that we know
everything often pushes firms to take a top-down approach
to budgeting. But if one lets it go and accept the reality that
intelligence and knowledge resides at all levels of the
organization, it opens up the wonderful door to the real soul
of budgeting: communication, involvement and ownership
with lasting benefits for the organization.
I had an opportunity to serve on the Board of a leading co-
operative bank. Come budget season, we gave up the past
processes of a top-down approach and focused on the trio
at the soul of budgeting. We began with a communication
session in which the Board had an open session with all the
operating and branch managers. Important aspects such as
emerging banking environment, bank’s strategic
imperatives, opportunities, critical organizational action
issues were communicated with the operating and branch
managers. The branch managers shared their views as well.
More importantly, they carried these discussions forward at
the branch level. The branch managers with support of
senior executives held communication sessions with the
branch staff. They together worked on the opportunities at
the branch level, challenges and areas of improvement.

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Some of the operations staff even carried out surveys in the
market place, giving them a feel of what the customers are
looking for and emerging competition. The branches had a
nearly a month to work together and prepare themselves for
today and the future. This exercise wonderfully created a
sense of camaraderie and involvement. The branch budget
was no longer that of the senior management or of the
branch manager. The staff members were focusing on
certain business opportunities not because they were told to
do so but because it was they who felt such opportunities
were waiting to be exploited and they had to be done with
alacrity for their common good. This baby step of
involvement and communication had a lasting impact on
the ownership paradigm and I am really delighted to see
that this sense of involvement and ownership has benefited
the bank immensely with the bank being a proud winner of
many awards and laurels.
Read the full article On MyCFO Website:
http://mycfo.in/blog/?p=26

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