How Finance Gets Ahead Of The Crisis

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We’re in the middle of a crisis that started as a health crisis and is turning into a deep economic crisis. Millions of people are being laid off or sent home under strict orders not to do any work.

However, those that are still working are facing a high-pressure workload. They are trying to find ways to best manage the crisis and get their companies through in one piece.

At Business Partnering Institute we wanted to understand what the situation for finance and accounting professionals was. Last week we started a global temperature check to hear from all of you how you’re doing.

Furthermore, we wanted to try and answer how Finance can not only help manage the crisis but also how Finance can get ahead of the crisis. We’ve developed four hypotheses on what would it take and we’ll use the survey answers coupled with interviews with senior finance leaders to answer them. 

The temperature check 

At first glance, one thing is clear from our survey. You’re either very busy or you’ve been sent home. 59% of respondents are facing a high to extreme work pressure. 13% have been sent home and will have to wait for the crisis to pass to get back to work or may find themselves having to look for a new job. This is a very telling picture!

We also asked what’s keeping you busy by ranking some standard processes from top to bottom.

Forecasting was a clear winner with scenario modelling, cash flow initiatives and performance management in close competition for the runner-up.

This shows that most of you are still managing the crisis or perhaps merely trying to survive. However, with the health crisis slowing down we must start to think about how to get ahead of the situation on the other side. 

Four hypotheses for getting ahead of the crisis 

What will it take to get Finance ahead of the crisis? At Business Partnering Institute we’ve come up with four hypotheses in terms of where Finance must succeed before the end of the year to come out on top. 

1.      Successfully run crisis performance management

2.      Build team capacity to survive the crisis

3.      Drive change initiatives across the company and realize the value

4.      Planning for 2021 and more broadly the next normal 

We believe that by succeeding on these four parameters Finance will get ahead of the crisis. Finance will be seen as a function that helped safely steer our companies out of the crisis and emerge stronger than before.

To support our belief, we’ll dig deeper into each one of these hypotheses over the coming four weeks and support it by doing interviews with senior finance leaders.  

For now, we’ll cover each one briefly. 

1. Successfully run crisis performance management

While the health crisis is on a downwards trend, it’s still not over and the economic crisis has just begun. That means there’s a need for running a different operating system than normal - likely until the end of the year. Finance must be the guardian of this and effectively facilitate that all parts of the company work towards achieving one common goal: get the company through the crisis as best as possible! 

2. Build team capacity to survive the crisis

Most of your team members are feeling quite exhausted right now! Remember 59% of our survey participants said they worked under high pressure now. Another 14% are sent home. Both groups struggle with their energy levels with one being at risk of breaking down with stress and the other of succumbing to despair. Human capacity must be built continually to get through the crisis. 

3. Drive change initiatives across the company and realize the value

Most companies are not short of initiatives to get through the crisis. Cash flow initiatives ranked 3rd and while margin recovery initiatives ranked quite low look for these to move up the ranks later in the year. Finance needs to track these initiatives but it’s not just about tracking them but also about being the catalyst that ensures that initiatives are followed through and the expected value is realized. Otherwise, the company might go bankrupt and certainly won’t emerge stronger from the crisis. 

4. Planning for 2021 and more broadly the next normal

Whether you like it or not you’ll soon start to plan for 2021. But what planning approach should we follow? Will you do the same as for 2020 or will you try something different? In our survey, we also asked what process people planned to follow for 2021 and bottom-up budgeting is still the winner with 31% of the votes, and 25+% looking to do either driver-based planning or zero-based budgeting. That’s interesting considering how fast the budget became irrelevant in 2020! 

In short, delivering on these four initiatives will help the company survive the short-term, ensure good energy and capacity to perform beyond the crisis, realize value from change initiatives, and have useful visibility going into 2021. 

What’s your plan for getting ahead? 

There’s no one size fits all for getting ahead of the crisis yet some approaches are likely to work better than others. We’re curious to hear about your approach too. Why not go fill in the survey to give more data on how finance is doing to get ahead? You can answer the survey here. 

In the coming four weeks we’ll share our view coupled with other senior finance leaders on how Finance can get ahead of the crisis. If you’d like to contribute to this by speaking to us about our four hypotheses then please reach out to Anders directly at [email protected] or send him a message on LinkedIn. Only together can we emerge stronger from the crisis!

This was the seventh article in my series about "Crisis Management for Finance Professionals" and you can read previous articles below.

15 Tips For Finance Professionals When In The Middle Of A Crisis

My 6 Finance Career Lessons From Times Of Crisis

30 Ways Finance Can Restore Shareholder Value Post A Crisis

How To Survive The Crisis Without Layoffs While Cutting Spend

Lost Your Job Due To Coronavirus? Here's How To Find A New One!

A Global Temperature Check Of Finance And Accounting

For more tips to help you through the crisis you can find more inspirational articles below.

How A LinkedIn Ad Turned Into To 10 Million Dollars

4 Reasons Why No One Implements Best Practices

Why Risk Management Is Supposed To Be Boring

3 Reasons Your Budget Is Already Outdated

How Finance Can Help When Business Is Bad

Who Holds The Key To Successful Cost Savings?

Don't Explain Yesterday, Predict Tomorrow!

Finance Needs A 20/20 View On The Business

Finance People - Adopt A Growth Mindset Or Die!

How Finance Masters Their Working Capital

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Model Me This. Model Me That. FP&A Can Model You Anything!

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.

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 8,000 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 40.000+ followers.