Scenario Planning & Analysis Tools
Turn scenario planning from a daunting task into an exciting exploratory approach. Identify and analyze your best financial future with industry-leading scenario planning tools and techniques. Synario does scenario planning and analysis best (it's why we're named Synario).
IMAGINE AN ALL-IN-ONE SCENARIO PLANNING TOOLKIT…
What if you could work with query-able scenarios that immediately answer your questions—and actually get reliable answers?
What if you had the power to see every possible outcome of your choices—and could confidently make decisions about your financial future?
You can accomplish all this and much more with Synario. Our industry-leading Multiverse ModelingTM solution does what clunky spreadsheet-based solutions like Excel can’t.
ADVANCED
MODELING
ADVANCED
ANALYSIS
ADVANCED
INSIGHTS
RESPONSIVE SCENARIO PLANNING
What is Scenario Planning? Techniques to Future-Proof Your Business Against the Unexpected
While you might not refer to it as “scenario planning,” every organization, no matter its size, performs scenario planning and scenario analysis on a regular basis. After all, every decision you make from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep carries with it a degree of uncertainty and risk.
So, what is scenario planning? What are scenario planning techniques?
When significant capital is on the line, the choices you make—and how you consider those choices—become far more important. In business, this usually means that decision-makers rely on a combination of objective analysis and “gut” feel to create best-case predictions concerning the possible outcomes of their choices.
Done right, scenario planning in strategic management can steer your business through storm-tossed seas rather uneventfully. Proper scenario planning can provide your business with the insights necessary to prepare for unexpected externalities and uncertain times. you can even capitalize on unlikely opportunities others might overlook.
SCENARIO PLANNING MADE EASY
Through an Intuitive Micro and Macro Scenario Builder
Building scenarios can be a daunting task in traditional spreadsheet-based financial models. In Synario, however, it's as simple as selecting your combination of initiatives from an intuitive dropdown menu. Once micro scenarios and assumptions are selected, macro scenarios can be saved and referenced at a later date. Synario makes scenario building in business a fast and efficient process so modelers can spend more time analyzing outcomes rather than on the development of complicated financial models.
Micro and Macro Scenario Builder in Synario
Synario offers a complete scenario planning toolkit including patented micro and macro scenario building capabilities. Toggle projects, initiatives, market conditions, and more on and off within the scenario builder.
Turn any number of toggles on or off to build macro scenarios that can be saved for easy reference. Individual Synario users can build out custom micro and macro scenarios without worrying about altering the underlying model thanks to Synario's cloud-based differential user access levels.
With both micro and macro scenarios easily managed and accessed through your single Synario financial model, modelers, CFOs, and stakeholders alike can focus on understanding their financial future without the hassle and risk associated with a method based on spreadsheets.
Read the full article on Micro and Macro Scenario Analysis in Financial Modeling.
CONTINGENCY PLANNING
Simulate Any Scenario
In business and in life, we must always prepare for the unexpected. But coming up with the right contingency plans is easier said than done—especially if you don’t have the best tools for the job. Risk analysis is difficult at the best of times, which is why simple spreadsheets just aren’t the right tool for the job.
With Synario, every step in the contingency planning process is streamlined and simplified. Everything from developing your planning policy statement and conducting a business impact analysis (BIA) to identifying preventative controls and creating contingency strategies becomes straightforward. Not to mention the dozens or even hundreds of hours you can save with a faster, more efficient planning solution.
Build multi-year financial and strategic plans around an unlimited number of custom-made scenarios. Present your findings to decision-makers in an automated, easy-to-understand format. Train your staff more effectively, so they know exactly what to do, when the time comes.
Generate confidence in your financial outlook with deeper, more nuanced, and more responsive contingency planning.
PLANNING AROUND FINANCIAL THRESHOLDS
Pinpoint the Best Path Forward
For example, let's say you have a sales target that you need to hit a few quarters from now in order to achieve the returns your stakeholders are expecting. Or maybe you need to pay back a sizable loan you took out for a construction project in a few years and want to ensure that you have enough cash on hand to do so with all your other budgetary concerns and requirements.
Whatever financial threshold you have in mind, Synario can help you identify the best path forward to arrive at your ideal financial outlook. Identify appropriate financial range thresholds and see every possible route you could take to arrive at your end goal. Or, if the financial threshold is unrealistic, at least you’ll know far ahead of time.
When you can reliably plan well for the unexpected, it’s a lot easier to stay under budget, hit revenue targets, and stay solvent no matter what the future may hold.
CUSTOMIZABLE, QUERY-ABLE SCENARIOS
Build Adaptable Scenarios With On/Off Switches and Value Sliders
Easily Adjust Your Assumptions
You finally finished building your models—only to find out the Board has a new set of last-minute questions that need answering. Or perhaps you received the latest data and need to seriously rethink your models a few hours before your big presentation?
One of the best things about Synario is how easy it is to change things up on the fly. Intuitive assumption tables let users quickly build custom scenarios for specific capital projects, sales projections, and more.
What if decision-makers ask you unexpected questions during your presentation? Not a problem. Synario’s Presentation Mode updates calculations in real time as you toggle assumptions and inputs with user-friendly switches and sliders.
View Countless Combinations of Initiatives
With Photoshop-like layers, switches, and sliders that users can quickly adjust, it’s never been easier to rapidly test different combinations and permutations for every scenario you’re analyzing—in a fraction of the time it would take with spreadsheet-based solutions like Excel.
Need to stress test a new project to see how it might be affected by various externalities? You can see how each event may affect your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow at the same time while also viewing the corollary impact of taking out and paying off loans (and just about anything else you could think of).
Not only have some of our clients saved countless hours by switching to Synario—they’ve also enjoyed more peace of mind. Instead of having to manually build scenarios and models in spreadsheets one by one, agonizing over every keystroke to ensure accuracy, Synario lets users build a single scenario that can accommodate all assumptions, variables, and questions.
The Process of Scenario Analysis
Scenario analysis is an objective way to determine which business decision is best when presented with multiple choices. While scenario planning will help you determine every possible scenario you must take into consideration, scenario analysis helps you identify the best decision for each future scenario.
Every scenario analysis can be boiled down to five key steps:
Define the problem(s) that needs to be solved
Separate certainties from uncertainties
Develop scenarios that account for all uncertainties
Identify the best possible decision for each scenario
In order to truly future-proof your business, you must anticipate every possible risk that could stop your initiative in its tracks. But no one has a crystal ball that lets them perfectly see into the future, even with the best method for scenario analysis.
Strategic management with Synario, fortunately, makes it easier for analysts, modelers, and decision-makers to efficiently tackle each step in the scenario analysis and planning process so they can confidently arrive at better business decisions with a high degree of consensus.
Most Scenario Planning Tools Are Limited
Spreadsheets and spreadsheet-based solutions like Excel have been around for nearly half a century. Public Financial Management (PFM), the parent company of Synario, was founded in 1975. As asset managers and financial advisors, we were able to witness the rise, adoption, and evolution of VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and Excel as global, go-to scenario planning solutions.
But that doesn’t mean we didn’t see lots of problems that needed to be solved. Our public and private clientele were constantly frustrated by their limited capabilities. We quickly realized that spreadsheet-based solutions like Excel were built with all users in mind, from analysts and accountants to Kevin and Creed at Dunder Mifflin.
These do-it-yourself tools were never purpose-built for scenario planning or scenario analysis—and it shows. Everything from entering formulas to programming algorithms to visualizing data for a presentation must be done by hand, and often from scratch.
How Synario Solves the Problem
Synario was built from the ground up to solve the problems caused by, mitigate the risks inherent to, and reduce the time wasted on spreadsheets so that organizations can make smarter decisions that lead to better outcomes. Synario can help your organization confidently carry out its mission while helping you enjoy more peace of mind.
Used by Public and Private Organizations Worldwide
Synario is an agile, intelligent financial modeling platform that offers transformative insights into the financial future of any organization.
Synario is used by higher education institutions, utilities, local governments, healthcare organizations, transportation agencies, and other public and private entities.
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