How Business Partners Keep A Business Plan On Track

What’s your plan to deliver the target for the year? What’s your plan if your plan fails? How many plans do you have? A, B, C, D…? Most business leaders have one plan to deliver on what they promised to the owners/board/stock market. If that plan doesn’t work out they’ll go into re-planning mode, but the focus should be on delivering the plan. “The plan is the plan, is the plan, is the plan” as one leader I respect always says.

However, what happens if your plan starts to go off track? You don’t start re-planning right away, do you? Maybe you have confidence that it’ll correct next month? This is where your business partner steps in and this week we’re talking to Luke Grindal about how he has worked with business stakeholders to get their plans back on track without needing a new plan. After all that’s the path of least resistance to delivering on the business’s promises. 

The daily realities of a business partner 

Being a business partner is not a standard job and often depends a lot on the context you work in. Hence, to understand the work that Luke did let’s get an idea about his context. 

“…the executive management had a mantra that went, ‘…give me the good news and the bad news but don’t ever surprise me.’. The path to success was rarely linear and we needed to develop back up plans that would be executed when we found ourselves off track.” 

I think most business partners can relate to this. You do your performance management of the planned actions and check if the P&L comes out as expected. That rarely happens though (because of positive or negative events) hence you find yourself with a variance. What do you do? Let’s hear from Luke. 

“In a global business with a full value chain, access to information was key. I became an ‘information junkie’ and took it upon myself to see the business through many lenses. First as a business controller, then as a finance business partner, sometimes a business analyst and then through the eyes of my stakeholders whether they be business unit managers or divisional managers. Each of these stakeholders has a motivation and a framework and each needs to be considered when presenting a valid revenue prediction.” 

A variance is not just a variance. Each stakeholder will have a distinct perspective on whether it’s a good or bad variance. Revenue is down which is likely not good for Sales but might have helped Operations reduce costs. The opposite could be true if costs are up and so on. Hence, corrective actions must be carefully analysed and presented with diligence. Here’s an example from Luke. 

“To consider revenue a function of many attributes helps to identify the levers available to impact the level of revenue. Although the weekly sales forecast and supply availability formed the core of our ability to predict quarterly revenue, conversations with KAMs would often uncover some gap in our plan. For example, if channel inventory at SKU level proved to be lower than agreed with the customer, then the KAM would be given a proposed order to discuss with that customer. Similarly, if special pricing or terms were needed to get a deal closed, then the case would be built, presented and negotiated. If our aim was to clear inventory, then marketing would assist in creating offers that bundled EOL product with high runners on favourable terms.”  

These are the discussions and recommendations a business partner must take part in and often lead to ensure the plan gets delivered. Don’t wait for the business to magically close the gap but also don’t come barging in telling them how to run their business. 

The simple yet challenging task of a business partner 

At the end of the day business partnering is not that complex. You do performance management, uncover variances, discuss the variances with the business leaders, and agree on actions to move forward. Simple, right? Here are some final reflections from Luke. 

“The tactical work involved the generation of ideas and importantly, the validation of those ideas. We called them initiatives and the sum of these initiatives would stop the gap to our target. Sometimes one of your ideas will catalyse a better one from a colleague, so share your thoughts with confidence and listen for feedback. Look at the business through the eyes of many, remove your blind spots and the ideas will flow. And you will be back on track in no time (or at least by quarter end).”  

Now to the real question. As a business partner are you involved in these discussions or do you simply just send the report with your comments on e-mail? It’s critical to your success that you’re part of the discussions. Otherwise, you’re not driving the delivery of the plan. Chances are no one will ever act on your findings so get in there and make them count! That’s how you keep the business on track and become a successful business partner. If you would like to contribute with your story on business partnering, then reach out in the comments or via message. I love sharing your stories.

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.

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Anders Liu-Lindberg is a Senior Finance Business Partner at Maersk supporting our largest product and I have more than 10 years of experience working with Finance at Maersk both in Denmark and abroad. I am also the co-founder of the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 7,000 members. My main goal at Maersk is to show how to be successful with business partnering and drive value creation as a trusted partner. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger with 34.000+ followers.