Business Partnering Is A Fast Growing Movement
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I first heard about business partnering in 2010. I was told that we as finance professionals had to move from the trunk of the car to the front passenger seat. We were to become co-drivers of the business. The term business partner was used.
The term was used as part of a wider transformation paradigm started a decade earlier by PwC and others.
Two paths had been outlined. Efficiency and Effectiveness. The mantra is that we must be as cheap and as good as possible at the same time. Ideally, it is not an either-or. To become cheap, we could offshore or automate to decrease time and resources spent on transaction processing and reporting. To become good, we should increase our decision support through business partnering.
The challenge? No one had a good idea about what business partnering really was and how we could become good at it. Adding to that there were no hallmark organizations that had already done it and stood as shining beacons we could learn from.
The beginning of a movement
However, it started a movement that many companies took part in. It involved a lot of trying and failing and even today most companies would say they could improve within business partnering. We have learned a lot and should state that business partnering is first a mindset and sometimes a role. It is a set of activities that anyone in Finance or other corporate functions can do. We have summarized everything in our 3 X I formula.
As with most change though it follows Gates’ law. We overestimate the impact in the short run and underestimate the change in the long run. From our perspective, we are now at a tipping point and in the next couple of years, we will see a significant increase in the effectiveness of the finance function. We will see finance professionals all over the world finally be recognized as true business partners. What do we base this on? Two things.
Before companies simply were not done with the efficiency path and continued to invest in tools and technology. Now they are seeing the ROI and are turning their focus to the people that remain. There has never been a more exciting time to be in Finance. Now we will ride the wave of impact and become effective to the point that we will deliver world-class performance.
From start-up to scale-up
This movement has a big impact on us at Business Partnering Institute. We are experiencing significant growth not least signaled by the hiring of three associate consultants. We also have two incoming directors in the second half of 2021 (more to come on those exciting announcements). Lastly, we are moving into new office spaces where we can truly go from being a start-up to a scale-up.
There has never been a more exciting time to be a part of the finance function and there has never been a more exciting time to be a part of Business Partnering Institute. We are also seeing the first effects of our strategic partnership with AICPA / CIMA where we are already raising the profile of business partnering among its nearly 700,000 global members.
We also want to extend our gratitude to all of you that have supported us on our journey. To the 130,000+ that have signed up to our weekly newsletters on LinkedIn. To all those that commented and engaged with our content in the past years. To all that have shown an interest in partnering with or working with us – we hope to still realize this dream!
There are so many good things to come, and we aim to soon publish new eBooks on “Finance Function 4.0” and “Business Partnering on a Formula”. We are truly excited about what the future brings and seeing finance professionals further elevate their influence in companies all over the world through business partnering!
Update on social media metrics
We continue to reach millions of professionals across the world and while LinkedIn keeps tweaking and changing what works it doesn’t change the overall picture. You can see the overall numbers for the past quarter below courtesy of Shield.
In the past quarter, I ran several polls as they are being promoted by LinkedIn at the moment. What did we learn from these? Here is a snapshot of the key insights.
I will continue to run polls to learn new insights about trends in finance and accounting and be sure to share them with all of you!
Year-over-Year the reach continues to increase at a doubling rate (as was the case with 2020 over 2019). Once again thank you to all of you for contributing to spreading the message!
Looking at the blog specifically the growth also continued fueled by subscriber growth to newsletters.
Recommended by LinkedIn
As always if you have any feedback please do post a comment or send me a message. I am also very open to taking up any topics you think are relevant. Until next quarter!
If you would like to read more about social media and how to get the most out of LinkedIn you can continue reading below.
Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with close to 10,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger with 60.000+ followers.
Built to Optimize: Business performance, Strategy, Data platform, and Decision support
3yAnders, Thank you for your insights. This has been a tremendous ride and I look forward to the future in Business Partnering. BobG.
Experienced CFO with Strategic Financial Leadership skills helping C-Suite and Executive Management.
3yThanks for the great article and you are absolutely right with the positive changes of the finance professional. I did a Master thesis ten years ago, about the financial controller role and the way the controller role changes in the last 10 or 15 years and your article confirms it. The outcome of my thesis was that the CEO is the driver in the car and that the financial controller is the navigation that helps and support the CEO to reach the company objectives and if there is a road block or a traffic jam the Financial Controller will redirect or find alternative routes to ensure that the company objectives will be met. In short the Finance professional is the company or organization devil's advocate. I love you article, well done. Cheers Marvin
CEO @ TreasuryPros | Treasury Management Consulting, Financial Literacy
3yAnother excellent article Anders.