The “CAO” And The Analytics Analyst
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
Some weeks ago Samuel Dergel, Executive Search Consultant and author of “Guide To CFO Success” posted a story proposing a new name added to the executive table – Chief Analytics Officer or CAO and stating that since Finance had not managed Big Data and Advanced Analytics well it should be taken off the CFOs hands. If you read my comments to the update you will see that I am not completely bought into it however when a week later I noticed one of the new hires in my company having the title “Analytics Analyst” it still got me thinking. Where has Finance failed when it comes to analytics and Big Data and do we really need a CAO?
First of all, I don’t think Finance has failed however Finance has not succeeded either. The function is developing rapidly as with everything else in society. Transactional tasks are being offshored / outsourced and large scale ERP systems are eliminating, automating and digitizing tasks at a pace never seen before. On the other hand the amounts of data available to companies have increased exponentially and still does yet few companies know what to really do with all this data. Typically it falls between chairs of IT and Finance yet none of those functions have really managed well to make the data work for the business. IT lacks business savviness whereas Finance has fought to gain this yet failed to get people that are equally strong at analyzing data. In general both disciplines (business finance and advanced analytics) are two very different things where one requires generalists and the other specialists.
Therefore it makes very good sense that next to all the business finance / partnering teams that have popped up in the finance department over the past 10 years that we start to see advanced analytics sections pop up too to tackle the monster of big data by analyzing the way companies do their analytics i.e. deciding which models to use instead of letting it be up to the individual finance professional. It is quite logical that companies can’t get value out of Big Data until they have structured their analysis by hiring specialists who can handle the insane amounts of data available.
Where it gets critical is linking the specialist and generalist functions of Finance as the financial business partners need to know enough about the analysis models the company has decided to use to understand the specialist language while at the same time knowing enough about the business to be able to put the analysis to work for the business.
Have your company figured out a way to do this or are you still struggling with data or specialists who can’t communicate with the business? If so you are probably also in need of some business partnering transformation and perhaps even a Chief Analytics Officer!
If you like what you read why not also like the post or leave a comment? You should also follow me for more content about finance transformation and performance management.
For posts in my latest series on how the CFO should transform Finance, you can continue reading below and further below there are more posts about finance business partnering.
The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance
How To Fix Your Basic Finance Function
Finance Systems For The 21st Century
Big Data Needs Big Data Scientists
Can Big Data Nerds Speak Business?
How To Become Great At Business Finance
I’m A Finance Business Partner, To Whom?
I also encourage you to take a tour of my older posts on finance transformation and not least “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” which is really that starting point for the transformation. Last but not least, you should join my Finance Business Partner Forum where we will continue to discuss this topic.
The Skills Of A Finance Business Partner
What Finance Business Partnering Really Is
You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?
Case Study: Becoming A Finance Business Partner
Why We Need Business Partnering Transformation
How To Define Finance Business Partnering 2.0?
How To Keep A Good Relationship When Saying No
How To Become Great At Business Finance
I’m A Finance Business Partner, To Whom?
Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Senior Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with the transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. I have participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. I would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. If you are looking for more advice on how to get the most of LinkedIn I also have a few tips to share as well as if you want help in your job search. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.
Account Executive at Salesforce
6 年Dealing with CEO's and CFO's on a daily basis you are exactly right that the analytics in current day businesses is a role in itself that is falling between the cracks almost between the roles for CEO, CFO and even CTO on occasion. Data fuels the modern day company, allows the management to gain visibility on company performance and more importantly enables accurate strategic plans for growth and expansion by providing figures you can be confident in allowing for key decisions to be made for the future of the organisation. Whom performs this task is the question? Do you hire a designated person, or upgrade the technology within your business to provide you the data in a more automated way? When you weigh up the costs of both, more often than not the latter is the better ROI and allows for more to be done within the business than just analytics but raises efficiency and productivity levels not only in finance function in the back office but also raises performance in the sales function at the front of office.
Finance Business Partner driving informed decisions
7 年I fully agree that data analytics falls between IT and Finance especially neither of them has the full capacity to do this value added task. By looking at the courses of data analytics like Programming and statistics, one would know that Finance or IT is not trained in all of this. The next challenge for both traditional departments is to utilize the advantage of owning those cross functional raw data, to master the new tool, to help improve the businesses.
Management Consultant | Planning Budgeting Forecasting | Data Systems Analyst Operations & Project Management
9 年Good point, each CFO needs to have an excellent data person in the team with good knowledge of the business and of data technology. The 'Systems Accountants' in the team have this bent and have migrated there because of their interest in databases and programming. Attracting engineers to the Finance group will bring the required technology capability because they have the statistics, programming and data know how.
yay another c level position created
Business & Integration Architect at Accenture
9 年Great post you're definitelty on to something. In agreement with Richard Adams I think having such a role at the executive level would dilute it's purpose a bit (also the acronym will invite too many jokes). Bring it down to a functional level - departmental analytics that can work that much closer with the people who generate the data being produced - funcional teams can contribute to the design of KPIs that mean something to their decision making. The analyst together with the relevant team lead have a task of escalating recurring negative trends or promoting the positive ones to the executive board level where it then can have a tangible influence on the wider group strategy. DDA = Departmental data analyst so to speak. .. it's not in the volumes it's in the quality and ultimately the result; which should be "value added" .