Here Is What Business Partners Need To Know About Their Business

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We once discussed business partnering with an experienced senior finance leader. He talked about how he had developed commercial acumen in an FMCG company selling toothpaste. On the surface, this might seem like a simple product category, he said, but from R&D and production through selling and distribution to end-customer use, there are many ways to create or destroy value.

To truly understand this, he continued, you must experience each step of the value chain. Do it to the point, where you end up in the house of a family in rural Vietnam seeing how they use the toothpaste. You will then see, if consumers use too much or too little, if the tube is optimally designed for use or it leads to a lot of waste and if the toothpaste is effective in protecting their teeth from wear and tear. 

You will also get an opportunity to ask them questions about how they use your product and why they buy your product over the competitors. You learn so much about your business by experiencing the value chain that you can put the numbers in a completely different perspective. That is how you develop commercial acumen and learn how your company makes or loses money!

The key insight from this story is that by experiencing and understanding your business in-depth, you will see new opportunities all the time. Opportunities to optimize the existing business and opportunities to grow tomorrow’s business. 

Therefore, business skills are critical to succeeding as a business partner and a key component of our business partnering capability model. 

We have defined three critical business skills that every business partner must obtain. 

What is your business competence level? 

When you start in a new company one of your first priorities as a business partner should be to learn about the business. Each company is different from the other and industries are inherently different. Hence, to be accepted by your business stakeholders you must learn to speak their language and develop business skills relevant to the specific company. Here is a small guide on how to start building these skills based on the four competence levels of foundational, intermediate, advanced, and expert.

This is a basic description of each of the four competency levels for each skill. We also have an expanded version and you are welcome to reach out for a more in-depth conversation around how to implement this in your company. 

How can you develop your business skills? 

Last week we shared our view on approaches to developing your competence level pointing to the 70/20/10 methodology as a very useful one. This also applies to develop your business skills.

These are just a few suggestions but there are many ways to develop your competence level in these skills. 

Now you know they are critical to succeeding with business partnering and can start to perform a gap analysis. Once you know where your main gaps are you can formulate a training plan to close them. 

What approaches are you using to developing your competence level in business skills? Do you have any inspiring stories to share of how you went on a business discovery journey like our senior finance leader described at the beginning? Tell us about what you do to improve your business skills in the comments, and we might feature your story in future articles. Lastly, answer this: How competent are you right now in the business skills?

Business Partnering Institute can help you succeed with business partnering and and start speaking the language of your business stakeholders. You can reach us at [email protected] or get directly in touch with Anders on +45 2926 6410 and start your journey today!

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This was the third article in the series about the Business Partnering Capability Model. You can read previous articles in the series below.

The Business Partnering Capability Model

Analytical Skills Are The Key To Generating Insights

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.

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 8,500 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 48.000+ followers.