How An FP&A Director Provided Line Of Sight To Millions Of Dollars

How An FP&A Director Provided Line Of Sight To Millions Of Dollars

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Being a business partner is all about delivering results. There are many ways you can deliver results of course yet one key approach is to generate insights that can improve decision-making. You have likely heard this before and wonder how exactly to generate these insights? To be fair, it is often not as glamorous as it sounds and could involve a lot of hard work and digging into data and details like you never imagined. 

So much more joyful is it when your efforts lead to tangible results and an improved bottom-line. This interview is exactly such a story as we learn how Paul Barnhurst, an FP&A Director at Solera derived insights leading to substantial l bottom-line improvements. Paul’s success is a great example of what we can achieve when we roll up our sleeves and take on tough assignments in the hope that they lead to tangible improvements. Let us turn it over to Paul to learn more about his story… 

The story of an impactful FP&A professional 

Please tell us about your career so far 

I went to school at Brigham Young University earning a bachelor’s degree in business. After graduating from school, I went to work for the United States Navy as a Procurement Specialist. Working as a Procurement Specialist for the Government helped me realize that a Government career was not for me. I went back to grad school and earned an MBA specializing in Finance, and a Master of Science in Information Management. After Graduate school I worked for American Express first as a business analyst supporting a sales team with reporting and managing a cash flow forecast. I then moved into Financial Planning and Analysis and have been working in FP&A for over a decade. I currently work for a company called Solera and we are a global automotive software company that operates in over 80 countries. I currently am the director for our dealership and aftermarket business units I am fortunate enough to work for a company that truly allows FP&A to serve as a trusted business partner. That has helped make the job more rewarding than some of my prior FP&A experiences. 

Can you share some more insights into how you work as a business partner? 

When it comes to business partnering, I can say that I have always primarily focused on… 

  1. …delivering business results
  2. …having satisfied customers (internal stakeholders) 

I have always been a big believer that we start gaining the trust of the business by delivering results. An example of this would be my first FP&A role where I was asked to manage planning for our Latin America and Asia regions within business travel supplier relations. 

When I took over, we had limited forecasting, poor understanding of actuals, and no structure to a regular monthly close process. I started by overhauling the forecasting process to ensure we had the data that the Global VP of the Supplier Relations department wanted. I then worked to create P&L reviews for every single market monthly. Finally, I worked closely with the finance people in each market to get a copy of all actual payments and built a database where we could report all our actual revenue against our supplier sales targets. I was then able to continue to build out the reporting to provide the VP with insight he had never received previously from finance. 

Providing these results made for a satisfied customer and allowed me to be a trusted business partner. It starts with delivering results on the basic requirements of the job and then moves to delight the customer by providing additional value-added insights. 

If you can, could share what KPIs you are being measured on? 

One of the businesses I support uses Objectives and Key Results (OKR’s) and finance has key objectives that tie to the rest of the business. These include overseeing the design of Power BI and all KPI reporting, finding savings with several different initiatives, and working with the business to improve the margins on our custom priced deals. I meet periodically with my General Manager to review how I am doing on each of these different OKR’s and adjust accordingly. 

What do your customers (internal stakeholders) think about the work you do and the results you deliver? 

I am fortunate to have a great relationship with my internal stakeholders. I talk to sales, marketing, product, and operations on a weekly basis.  Generally, my internal stakeholders are happy with the work I do. I have spent many hours working on providing value-added analysis to the business. I am always willing to speak up and provide ideas and suggestions in meetings. For example, I was preparing a model for the pricing of a large business opportunity. 

During the meeting, I provided the business development rep with a couple of ideas we could try on pricing. One of the ways I suggested was not a way we had ever priced a deal before and she loved the approach. 

The biggest challenge I find is finding time to keep up with all the demands from the business, but I always try to think with a business mindset and ensure that I am focusing on what will drive value for the company and my internal stakeholders. 

Could you please share some of the key results you have achieved as a business partner? 

This is a great question. I think two of the projects I am most proud of that have really helped move the business forward is around understanding our product profitability. I had just taken over a new business that had extremely poor reporting and no real insight into what the profit margin was for customers or products. The billing data was often inconsistent, and we could not tie the billing detail back to the product we had sold that was listed in our CRM. 

Our Product Management team had been asking finance for this information for more than a year but had never received it. I spent several months pulling all the data together and put together profitability P&Ls for all our major products. This really cemented my relationship with the product team and today I am regularly consulted on various initiatives they have going on. I am not viewed as the finance guy, but I am a key partner who can work with them to help provide value-added insight and knowledge. 

The second project was around building a robust revenue model. We had extremely poor models and my boss focused each of us in the company on building better revenue models so we could provide greater insight to the business. I worked ridiculously hard with another FP&A manager to build a model that forecasted all our revenue by product and included sales assumptions for all our sales teams. We worked on the model for six months. 

After using the model for a few months and really learning about the business and our systems I realized the model did not provide the insight the business needed. Without being asked I took a month to rebuild all our reporting so that the forecast model would provide the data at a level that would allow leadership to hold sales accountable for sales targets and would help ensure we reached our revenue targets. 

The model today provides outputs that are used by product and sales to help manage the business. I was very proud of this accomplishment because it has substantially moved forward our understanding of the business. By providing a robust sales model and understanding of client profitability I have helped the business restructure deals resulting in hundreds of thousands being added to the bottom line. 

Please elaborate more in-depth on exactly what your role was in delivering these results? 

My role in the profitability case was to allocate the revenue and expenses to every product and then provide feedback on what the data said and how we could use it to move the business forward. For example, I was able to demonstrate that a certain delivery channel for a product was more profitable than others and that the business should focus more time on it. 

With the two examples I gave above I was the primary owner of the project, yet I talked to sales, operations, and product to ensure I had the right data and insight to build the reporting that would help the business and not just allow me to submit a forecast. 

What do you think accountants can do to become more results-oriented and how will it benefit their careers? 

This is a great question, Anders. As someone who did not come from the accounting ranks, I have always appreciated those who have an accounting background. I think every accountant should focus on the output. If they own a P&L, they should focus on understanding what the P&L should look like, what drivers impact the results, and they should be able to tell if it is not right. If not right, they should research it before someone from the FP&A department tells them the results look wrong. 

What final piece of advice do you have for accountants who are thinking to become business partners? 

I would encourage every accountant to develop a business partner mindset regardless of whether you want to move into a business partnering role, an FP&A role, or stay an accountant. When I think of business partnering it is more about the mindset than the job title or the role. 

Start today by looking at your job and write down who your stakeholders are and what they expect and need from you. Then make sure you deliver that as best as you possibly can. 

Becoming a business partner through delivering results 

Boiling down Paul’s story it is a simple fact that to become a business partner you should deliver results. In fact, it will be very helpful that you deliver them with a positive surprise. That means delivering something that your stakeholders did not think they could get from their accountant. 

Paul also showed that to deliver results you often need to roll up your sleeves and get knee-deep into data and reporting to derive new insights. One thing that Paul could probably have done even better was to check in with his stakeholders during the problem-solving. At least we want to avoid working for six months to build a solution that does not exactly meet the customers’ needs. 

What were your key takeaways from Paul’s story? Did you find it helpful in your journey to becoming a business partner? Paul might not be an accountant but he sure did provide many helpful tips and most importantly told us that it is about delivering results!

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This was the fourth article in the series "Profiles in Business Partnering" and you can read previous articles in the series below. Together with the series "Becoming a Business Partner" there is a lot more content coming. Do not forget to subscribe to this newsletter to avoid missing a beat!

An Audit Officer's Journey Towards Becoming A Business Partner

One Accountants Untraditional Route Through The Business To Business Partnering

What This Accountant Learned From A Stint In The Business

Here you can read previous articles in the series "Becoming a Business Partner".

The Accountants Journey Towards Becoming A Business Partner Unlocked

Your Career Path From Chartered Accountant To Business Partner Defined

Why Delivering Results Is A Key Priority For Would-Be Business Partners

The Resume That Will Surely Land You A Business Partner Role

The Cover Letter That Lands You The Business Partner Interview

What Senior Finance Leaders Look For In Business Partners

If you want to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders" (the last article in the series about our new capability model)

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT, and HOW of business partnering by putting it on a formula)

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 9,000 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 on LinkedIn with 50.000+ followers.

Rajul Kambli , MBA, CMA, CISA, CS

Senior Finance Leader | CFO| Ex. Cornell Alumnus |Head of Finance | Digital Transformation | Global Accounting| Shared Services | Process Improvement

3y

Paul, glad to read your story and finding similarities on delivering results is not easy but that is where we as finance business partner generate value and make a place holder for ourselves. Difficult the path, greater the opportunity. Keep it up.

Michelle G.

Harnessing the power⚡of Data & Analytics to provide commercial support in decision making💡Driving business value🌍

3y

Moving away from ticking boxes to delivering value. Great example Paul Barnhurst 💭

Stephen Donaldson

Excel/VBA specialist from an Accounting background

3y

Great story fellas. What I particularly like is that it shows the scope for improvement there can be, sometimes even in a large organisation, for better analysis, reporting and modelling, that will more than pay for the investment needed to achieve it.

Aliyyah Abdullah MBA CPA

Finance Business Partner | Writer | Geek

3y

Thanks for sharing this Anders. Paul's story was very insighftul and I'm glad more persons can read about it. I really liked the going- back- to- the- drawing-board on the model story and the fact that he didn't give up and was earnest about it in solving an issue for the stakeholders. It says alot. I also have a modelling story (but I'm not a financial modeller), to share as well but will post more about this in March. Once again, great and practical tips here and there and loving the entire series! Can't wait to read more.

Bill Denney, CPA

Controller/CFO, CPA, M&A, CEO Goals - Help Create Value, Highly Collaborative Strategic Business Partner, Look Beyond Numbers, Insightful FPA, Relationships, Diverse Industries

3y

Delivering insight - its a big deal.

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