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5 Tips to make Finance Business Partnering a success
Posted by Helen Lumb - 11 th July
2013
Following on from my last article 7 Reasons why Finance Business Partnering works
-
34% of finance organisations already invest more than 30% of their time delivering
Finance Business Partnering and 83% want to increase that time over the next 3 years
(Source -
So how do we make it work?…..
These are my 5 tips for success:
Tip 1 -
Awareness needs to increase inside most businesses, to understand beyond the label 'finance business partner' and understand what this means in practice and what is really on offer.
When I set off on this journey of writing articles and blogs, I spent time on Google, looking at volume of search terms. Despite the fact that there are countless global businesses who have been advocating and implementing finance business partnering, all the major accountancy firms/ bodies have articles and white papers and there is much in the press for the accountant/ finance professional to develop into the business partner that businesses sorely need, it is not a widely searched term.
I believe that this is a relatively unknown term for the smaller, medium organisations, despite the fact that benefits speak for themselves.
My own personal goal is to raise as much awareness as possible, with these articles and demonstrate that the benefits are not just for large, global organisation but for businesses of any size.
Tip 2 -
A mechanism for reporting financial information is required. In a large organisation this could be a full blown ERP system, accompanied by business intelligence systems and use of 'Big data' analytics. In a much smaller business or startup, this could simply be outsourced bookkeeping and management accounting. The key is having systems in place that can measure what has been identified as the relevant key performance indicators to run the business. This doesn't have to be sophisticated, but it does have to be reliable and flexible, because part of the finance business partner approach is to be strategically effective, and this means live, dynamic identification and measurement of performance, fast.
Finance transformation is often linked exclusively to systems and processes and availability
of information and data. I would like to challenge this mindset -
Tip 3 -
It is not enough to rename the finance professional a 'finance business partner'. Non technical skills and a high degree of emotional intelligence are required for finance professionals to take on this key role. Typical skills would be:
- Commercially aware, business acumen and decision making
- Communication and relationship management
- Challenge, negotiation and influence
- Strategic thinking
- Innovative
- The ability to synthesise as well as analyse
- Change and project management
Tip 4 -
It is not sufficient to simply build skills in the finance professional, a particular
mind set is required to deliver a collaborative, partnering style. Interdependence
is key -
Tip 5 -
Almost all my tips have been for finance function, but this is last but by no means least. The business must be bought in to the idea of a finance business partner. This is often the key missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle, but is essential for success.
The business and business managers must trust, accept and recognise the value that the finance business partner brings, otherwise the whole process will fail and the finance professional will become very demotivated in a very short space of time.
My tip to overcome this, is to demonstrate to the business, the benefits this person brings, educate them in how to have good conversations with them, how to make best use of them and drive a culture of partnering deep into the business, so it becomes a way of life.
This may be the greatest challenge of all!
So watch out for my next article on how I believe this can be achieved….
What are your experiences of finance business partnering? Is this a recognised term for you? Have you implemented this? Please share…
This is the 6th blog in a series to generate awareness of finance business partnering, please read my blogs, give me your comments and feedback, share and follow me on Twitter where I will post when I have added new information or send me your email address to Helen.lumb@indigoperformance.co.uk and I will contact you when a new post has been added.
Helen Lumb is director and co-