Planning Software as Shared Management Layer
Ross Fubini, Managing Partner at XYZ Capital, on the biggest opportunities in fintech today
The key unlock is that planning software becomes much harder to rip out when it stops being a finance utility and becomes the place where sales, hiring, marketing, and product plans meet. In practice, that means finance starts with the budget, then department leaders log in to submit headcount plans, revenue inputs, or campaign assumptions, and the tool spreads because each team gets its own useful view instead of just feeding finance paperwork.
-
The modern FP&A wedge is not just faster close or cleaner spreadsheets. It is turning disconnected department models into one shared operating model. Runway describes every department already keeping its own forecast, and Causal describes budget collection as a workflow where marketing and other teams directly edit and submit inputs.
-
Figma is the right comparison because expansion often starts with lightweight participation. In Figma, people begin as viewers and commenters, then become editors once their role in the workflow becomes active. The same pattern maps to planning tools, where department heads first review numbers, then start owning inputs that shape company plans.
-
This is also why older planning tools and Excel based systems hit a ceiling. Vena can expand across finance, sales, and operations while staying in Excel, but newer products are trying to win by making the model itself easier for non finance teams to understand and interact with. That is what drives broader seat growth inside an org.
The next phase is planning software becoming a shared management layer for the company, not a back office app. As more tools connect HR, CRM, product, and finance data in one model, the winners will be the products that each function can actually use in its own daily workflow, which turns collaboration into durable distribution.