Business Partnering v Artificial Intelligence

Hello and welcome...?to our weekly newsletter, where we share 3 things weekly to help you become a great FBP.

This week those 3 things are:

- Business Partnering v Artificial Intelligence

- The Worst Negotiations are...

- Client Wins and Programs

And don't forget, theFBPteam is here to help you develop a highly engaged and commercially?strong?finance team that other functions want to work with.... book in a call to see if we can help at...

www.calendly.com/andrewjepson

Business Partnering v Artificial Intelligence

Business Partnering v AI

What are you going to get more benefit from - Business Partnering or AI

The correct answer is both.

It's not an OR question, it's an AND question?and if you are lacking in one, you are lacking in both.

Now, the noise on Finance Business Partnering has slowed down somewhat in the past 24 months since chatGPT came along and blew everyone's minds.

Which worries me. We are going back to the finance teams of the past where nobody sees you and?nobody actions anything finance notices.

And I see it in the finance teams I work with and talk to. The world is now all about AI, automation and technology.

But once it's in......then what.

The skills and behaviours to introduce tech, and get that working well, are completely different to the skills and behaviours needed once it is in.

And those skills and behaviours are your business partnering skills.

Get the robots doing as much as you can, I agree with that. But they won't ever be able to take all of the reporting, analysis, commentary, etc into your organisation and get change actioned and executed.

That's what humans are needed for.

And unfortunately if you don't acquire and develop those partnering skills and behaviours, well, then you aren't much value to anyone.

And you will be left with a career where the bots will do?what you can do way?quicker and way faster. And probably cheaper.

So you need both AI and BP. They don't compete they complement each other and have a natural order

Focus on business partnering and you will never get everything done efficiently - you will not be leveraging that tech that exists - and just be busy busy busy on the data

Which will make you fairly useless.

Focus on the tech, and wow you will be quick, but you will lack the skills needed to execute anything you find or develop.

Which makes you fairly useless

FBP and AI is not a competition. It's a polarity. And if you don't manage both you will be left behind.

The Worst Negotiations are....

The Worst Negotiations are....

The past fortnight has been an interesting ride for me as I started the process of negotiating for a new property. And also had a separate negotiation with a client go?south

It's been a?pretty average two weeks in this space for me.

Now I haven't had to negotiate on property for about 15 years. And I certainly haven't done it since I first started learning the art of negotiation.

And I discovered this week that the worst negotiations are those where a third party is involved - and sits?between you and the decision maker - which both of these were.

Let's take buying a property as the example. You are dealing with a real estate agent.

This person is not the vendor. And the one who makes the decision.

And you have no ability to get in front of the decision maker, to ask them questions, understand their motives, read the room, create Win/Wins, move things forward, etc.

You can attempt to get it through the third party agent. But they have a different motive and will tell you whatever they want because they know you are never going to talk to the decision maker and find out what's the truth and what's a lie.?

So it makes negotiation hard.

You have even less information to go off, and unless you are a good critical thinker and composed, that information may most likely be false, and tainted with emotive techniques to get you to buy.

So if you have to negotiate through a third party, make sure you get independent evidence of the facts (don't take their word for it), ask lots of questions in different ways to unravel what is true and what's not, and don't assume anything.??

So did I buy the property for a good price. No....we found issues with the house that conflicted with what we were told, did further investigating to confirm it and pulled out late. We dropped some cash, but it was nothing compared to what we would have dropped if we went ahead with the purchase and had to fix the issues.

Upcoming FBP Programs & Clients?

The Leaders Lab

In our last newsletter we launched The Leaders Lab. Our 2025 program for those who are looking to take their career to the next level.

And we have been inundated with expressions of interest so far.?

Which is awesome

But we are only taking 20 people for the first cohort.

So if you are interested please get in contact and express your interest. Just click on the button below and we will arrange a chat during November to assess your suitability.?

One of Australia's largest retailers

Despite the dissapointment of losing one of my clients mentioned above we did manage to get confirmation of a pilot program with one of Australia's largest retailers for 2025.

I first had contact with this client over 18 months ago so talks to how slowly these things can move.

And how no deal is ever dead until it is dead.

Like all programs now we will be getting this ready to commence in early 2025 and plan to roll out with their finance team over Q1 and 2

Cloud and Cyber Security?Provider

We also received confirmation this week of our earliest program for 2025 starting in the first week of January.

It's always good to start something in the first week of the new year as we close down over most of December to enjoy the festive season (rather than January).

It also allows us to?open 2025 with a brand new client which is also very exciting for us.

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Because once the robots arrive, the only thing left will be business partnering