CFO's need to Accelerate Team Performance

A key enabler to accelerating your team's performance is developing capability and specifically business acumen

The demands and expectations on our finance teams are changing rapidly. There is now a far greater demand from the business for Finance to drive performance. This demand requires CFO's to focus attention towards finance business partnering. Finance business partnering is the role that Finance undertakes to support business priorities through delivering insight and value in support of growth and future performance. The opportunity to redefine and invest in finance business partnering has been enhanced by:

• The explosion in the quantity and variety of data available
• Commercial demands of new business models
• Digital disruption and the opportunities it presents

Many businesses acknowledge that finance business partnering requires advanced skills and behaviors, and developing and retaining a high talent pool is critical. A recent Deloitte survey found that 39% of CFO respondents felt they lacked the necessary capabilities with the finance function.

One way for CFO's to fast track the development of business partnering capability is through the development of Business Acumen. Business acumen is talked about a lot but is often poorly understood, narrowly defined and has been hard to measure. Quad Assessment has spent several years extensively reviewing and researching business acumen and has now developed an assessment called the Business Acumen Gauge which measures 11 capabilities with regards to their importance and demonstration.

This assessment process – delivered online – is now available as part of CFO Accelerators  suite of assessment products and it has already produced insightful and valuable information to many of our clients, and interesting insights into what is regarded as important in certain roles. The report, which is produced for each person assessed, is based on a validated benchmark across the 11 elements of business acumen with a number of sub categories as defined in the assessment method. Those elements are:

Mindsets These are your mental attitudes or predispositions. These determine your responses to and interpretations of situations. They are also indicators of your inclinations and habits. They are the ways you think as a predictor of how you might act in demonstrating business acumen.

Foresight This is your ability to step back to get a total picture of the business and envisioning its future.

Broad Scanning This is your ability to acquire and use information about trends, events, possibilities and relationships in the external environment.

Strategic Alignment This is your ability to create and set strategic direction designed to improve business performance.

Collaborative This is your ability to engage in teamwork and collaboration: working with others towards common objectives.

Resource Management This is your ability to optimally ration resources; materials, people, time and finance.

Systems and Process  This is your ability to efficiently identify, develop and use management information systems and technology.

Decision Making This is your ability to make sound choices from among the available options, then identify the necessary actions and share your insights with others.

Talent Development This is your ability to assess and develop key talent to meet business needs.

Duty of Care This is your ability to take responsibility for present and future well being of staff and the organisation – economic, social and environmental.

Financial Literacy This is your ability to understand, interpret and apply financial data.

The report is a 360 review of importance and demonstration and can be provided for an individual or an organisation, at a business unit, divisional, geographical regional or organisational level.

 All individual assessment reports are delivered with a one on one debrief with one of our experienced and accredited providers. This debrief is preferably conducted face to face but can be delivered via telephone or teleconference. An online development guide is available to provide support to the ongoing development journey.

 James O'Brien is the  Founder of CFO Accelerator which offers exclusive mentoring and coaching to CFO’s across Asia Pacific. Book a FREE CFO Power Up Session to see how the Business Acumen Gauge can assist your teams leadership journey.

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James is accredited in the Business Acumen Gauge from Quad Assessments