Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering?

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More than ten years ago a global transport and logistics company hired their first finance business partner. It was the start of a decade-long journey. The company did multiple rounds of job descriptions and roles and responsibilities matrices. They offshored a significant amount of work during the period and upgraded their BI capabilities. Capability assessments were used frequently to assess progress and change the hiring profile. 

What made you a good business partner at the beginning would not cut it at the end. Top it with the largest business partnering training program ever in history and multiple organizational changes during the period. This has been one of the most serious attempts globally to create a performing business partnering organization. While the journey continues and has not been without challenges it certainly also created many successes along the way. 

To help others succeed too and shorten the journey we have put business partnering on a formula. We have shown you the roadmap to success and now it is time to talk about the next steps. 

Where do we go from here? 

It depends on where you are on the journey, of course, so we will work ourselves backwards from the ultimate success criteria. Here is what business partnering should deliver.

Increased shareholder value creation

There are two ways you should work with this. 1) meet or beat the targets that have been set for your company and 2) break down shareholder value creation into value drivers, assign a value to them and decide which business partners are responsible for each of them and at what level in the organization. Now you embed this into your people performance management to say that no business partners can be successful unless value has been created. 

Improved customer satisfaction 

First, you must measure your customer satisfaction. Simply ask business stakeholders that are supported by business partners if they would recommend their business partners to another stakeholder. This gives you a classic Net Promoter Score (NPS) and tells if your customers are satisfied. You should supplement this question with more specific ones where you probe into why they are satisfied or dissatisfied. In principle, they could be satisfied simply because they get their data and reports but that is not business partnering. Once you know your baseline, your target should be continuous improvement. 

Value log 

This is primarily an internal tool for Finance only. You should not use it to promote to business stakeholders how much value you have created. However, it should be used to celebrate successes, provide inspiration across the finance function, and show if you are progressing to create continuously increasing value. While you should not use it as a promotion tool widely in the organization you can still use it when negotiating for more resources. When stakeholders meet or beat their targets, they are very satisfied with their business partners, and you have a dense value log showing that you are creating value through business partnering then you should hire more business partners. 

We are curious to know if any of you (and your companies) out there can tick all these boxes. Then we would like to talk to you and learn from you. Please do not hesitate to reach out! 

What if we cannot tick all the boxes? 

If you cannot tick all boxes, then you should not be concerned. Most companies cannot. Most companies still have work to do even they have been on a decade-long journey. The key is that you know where you are on the journey and how to move forward. We have shared our view on the building blocks needed to be successful with business partnering. You can read about in “The Business Partnering Readiness Checklist” 

If you lack the foundation, then why not take a starting point in our business partnering framework below.

We believe that Insights X Influence = Impact is the recipe for business partnering success. 

If you need to make it concrete, then reach out to discuss how to get access to our proven and hands-on toolbox that can speed up your journey significantly. 

If you are wondering how you can make it live in your organization then let us talk about how to create a learning and development journey for team members across your organization. We promise you that you will get a great return on investment when the program is done! 

We leave the door open for you now. What challenges are you facing with business partnering at this time? Where are you on the journey now? What issues would you like us to address going forward? How can we help you take the next steps towards successful business partnering? The floor is yours and we want you to tell us if we should keep talking about business partnering?

Business Partnering Institute can help you succeed with business partnering. 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 seventeenth article in the series "Business Partnering On A Formula". You can read past articles in the series below.

This Is How We Succeed With Business Partnering

Business Partnering On A Formula

This Is How Business Partners Have Impact And Drive Value Creation

Here's Why You Want A Business Partner At The Table

Decision ≠ Action - But What Can Finance Do About It?

How Do Business Partners Generate Insights?

A Business Partner Is Like A Mechanic, Always Looking To Optimize The Engine Room

Performance Management Done Right Is A Gold Mine Of Insight

Here Is How Finance Can Grow The Business

If Only It Was Enough For Finance To Be Right

Successful Business Partners Do Not Hang Around In The Finance Department

How Business Partners Get To The Point... Fast

Business Partners Must "Train Like They Fight" To Succeed

The Business Partnering Readiness Checklist

To Succeed With Business Partnering You Need A Role Model

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.

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 47.500+ followers.