Finance and the lost art of business partnering

As part of the journey to transform their Finance functions, companies are rethinking their concept of Business Partnering. The concept itself is not new, albeit professionals and their knowledge and strengths have been misused by a number of companies in recent years.

An article written by Andrew Jepson and published at The Outperfomer summarises the issue in one simple yet clever sentence:

The art of listening is a lost art in the busy world we live in but a critical skill for a Finance Business Partner. A skill that will help you solve many a business problem, and add value to the organisation you are in.

Problem is, finance professionals tend to be quantitative, process-oriented, when Business Partnering requires a different type of approach. Business Partners work towards a common goal, not on different agendas and priorities. If Commercial aims to increase penetration in a given market segment or geographic area, or if Supply needs to find more effective ways of improving service, it is Finance role, as a business partnering function, to first understand these business objectives and then help their partners to identify ways to achieve those goals whilst delivering optimal results in both top and bottom lines. In order to do that, there must be the right focus, the right sense of urgency, the right prioritisation of tasks. Ultimately, the right job profiles, executed by the right professionals. And none of those can be done if Finance Business Partners continue to spend their precious time on transactional activities, booking journals, fixing and crunching data or issuing reports that will then form the basis for their rear-mirror type of analysis.

The Modern Finance Forum, a LinkedIn group sponsored by FSN, in partnership with Rootstock Software, has recently published a survey, "Business Partnering and the Manufacturing CFO - CFO Global Survey 2019", with startling insights about the way more than 660 respondents, all senior finance professionals in multinational organisations, see the role of Finance as a business partnering function.

According to the research, whilst 88% of senior finance professionals see themselves as business partners, there are substantial differences on their views on what Finance Business Partnering encompass, "from the traditional financial management tasks all the way through to prompting change and innovation in core financial processes".

When it comes to the future of finance, referred to by the research as BP², there are four different maturity stages where one company might classify their own journey towards true Finance Business Partnering:

1. the traditional Financial Performance Drivers;
2. focus on Top-Line Drivers, which might bring no more than short-term benefits;
3. Strategic Aligners, when Finance actively look for ways to influence critical mid to long-term decisions; and
4. Catalysts for Change, when Finance becomes the key agent for positive changes to the entire organisation.

In order to move from 1 to 4, it is crucial that time from Finance Business Partnering teams is freed up, and training delivered to enable professionals to succeed on their new roles. Here is were defining what is and what is not included in the desired scope of work of Finance Business Partners is of utmost importance, as well as the back-office type of support needed and enabling tools and technologies. The biggest mistake on Finance Transformation projects lays on the primary focus on technology, before discussions regarding people and their roles are brought to the table.

In my next article, I will explore some of the activities that might be performed by Finance as a Business Partnering function and the benefits of transferring transactional activities to more specialised roles within a Shared Services type of organisation.

Andre L Braga is an international Finance Director, with large experience on FMCG. Currently designing the future of Finance as a Business Partnering function at Britvic.