I’m A Finance Business Partner, To Whom?

In my series about the CFOs roadmap to transforming Finance we’ve now reached the finance business partner role. And not just the role because I've described that in three posts last year.

What Finance Business Partnering Really Is

You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?

How Finance Business Partners Improve Company Performance

More importantly, we need to look at those that the finance business partner support and what is needed to adequately deliver this support. First, I’ll repeat an unscientific survey I did in one of my posts last year. I simply searched for open jobs for Accountant, Finance Business Partner and “Business Finance”. My thesis would be that there are now more jobs related to finance business partnering and business finance whereas accountants would remain at the same level.

Accountant: July 2015 = 17,000 – September 2016 = 22,000 (+29%)

Finance Business Partner: July 2015 = 100 – September 2016 = 90 (-10%)                            

Business Finance: July 2015 = 4,000 – September 2016 = 6,000 (+50%)

From above it’s clear though that while “Business Finance” is in heavy growth and there are even more openings looking for an Accountant the role of the Finance Business Partner doesn’t seem to gain traction in the US. Searching for vacancies of Finance Business Partner in the UK gives a more positive result with 500+. In the US it’s still the Financial Analyst that reigns supreme with 8,000+ openings when it comes to the more value adding part of Finance. Having already described the differences between the financial analyst and the finance business partner, I still firmly believe that finance functions by adding the finance business partner role under the right circumstances can be a lot more value adding. I say the right circumstances because it requires a certain degree of finance transformation which I have described in the previous posts of this series. If you haven’t gone through this transformation journey your finance business partners will be less successful and not yield the value you expected.

To support someone you must KNOW, UNDERSTAND and BE GOOD AT what they do

There’s one more requirement if you want your finance business partners to be successful and that is acquiring business knowledge. Not just general business knowledge but deep functional expertise in the area they support. Historically finance business partners have been appointed in a generalist role where they needed to support the business as best as possible. It was not clear which business function they supported and whether they found value from savings, additional revenue or process efficiencies didn’t really matter. Now I say it does matter. If you truly want to help someone become more successful themselves you must have an in-depth understanding of what they do. If you don’t know anything about Sales how can you support a Sales Manager? If you don’t know anything about production how can you support a Plant Manager? In essence, you need to at least know and understand what they do and ideally, you should also be good at it. If you don’t develop this functional expertise you will find it hard to gain their trust and buy-in which is so crucial for being a finance business partner.

Putting Finance Business Partnering on a formula

Once you get this then putting finance business partnering on a formula that everyone can follow actually isn’t that complicated. You need to align the job description of your finance business partner roles to those of the functional managers they support. Their one goal is clear and it has to be to make sure the functional managers are a success in their own right. They do that by providing insightful analyses derived from their own business knowledge and discussions with the functional managers. Together they agree on actions to drive the business forward. Simple yet so very difficult to execute because there are so many pre-requisites. Reaching this stage also makes it easier for you to find people that can fill the finance business partner role as it’s now much more clearly defined. They don’t need to be the Jack of all Trades but rather someone with business knowledge and analytical savviness combined with good communication skills. These people are findable. Your Superhero does-it-all finance professional doesn’t exist.

Now tell me what’s preventing you from delivering the support you want to your business stakeholders? Which part of your finance transformation journey is still unfinished? What business knowledge and acumen do you feel you lack? Answering all these questions to improve yourself or your finance business partners is crucial to the future success of Finance. Then you can truly start to explore what lies beyond finance business partnering and business finance in general which is exactly what we will do next week! As always let me know what you think by liking, commenting and sharing the post.

For past post in my 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 also encourage you to take a tour of my old 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.

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?

Case Study: Becoming A Finance Business Partner

Why We Need Business Partnering Transformation

How Finance Can Help When Business Is Bad

How Finance Can Become An Analytics Powerhouse

How Finance Business Partners Improve Company Performance

There Is A New Kind Of CFO Needed In Town

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. Anders has 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. He 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 Anders also has 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.