Why Delivering Results Is A Key Priority For Would-Be Business Partners

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Take a good look at your objectives for 2020 (or 2021 if you have them already). What are you being measured on? Process improvements? Meeting a specific deadline? Delivering a certain quality standard in your work? These are all very common KPIs for finance and accounting professionals. In fact, in many cases, people working in the finance function can have a successful year even if their company is not. 

This is a profound disconnect and one of the root causes that Finance is often not an integrated part of making key decisions in the company. If you work as a finance business partner this is very different though. As a business partner, you can never be a success if the business stakeholders you support are not a success. This alone could terrify many accountants from wanting to become business partners. 

However, it is much more meaningful to work in this way as the work you do suddenly becomes much more related to the company’s success. In this article, we will break down how business partners are (or at least should be) measured on their performance. By doing so we will explain why delivering results is the key priority for business partners. 

The three key measures of successful business partners 

There are three key measures that business partners should focus on. 

1. Delivering business results
2. Having satisfied customers (internal stakeholders)
3. Documented value creation 

Delivering business results

As a business partner, you should assume the same KPIs as your customers. In that way, you are only successful if they are successful. This helps focus all your attention on what you can do to help them be successful. It gives you a filter that you can apply to all the activities you do today. Ask “does what I do help my customer be successful?”. If not, then find ways of delegating, offshoring/outsourcing, or simply eliminating the task. 

Having satisfied customers

Do you know if your customers (in this case internal business stakeholders) are happy with how you help them achieve their goals? If you have not asked them there is no way you can know. Perhaps you do ask in monthly 1:1s but it is often unstructured feedback. The best way to get this feedback is through running customer satisfaction surveys in set intervals. This will give you some great feedback on improvement points but more importantly tell you if your customer thinks you are contributing to delivering business results. 

Documented value creation

It is possible that you have satisfied customers and that they are delivering great business results. However, they could simply be satisfied because they get their numbers on time and they find your reports useful. Actually, you are not really contributing to the value created. That is why we add this third point of documenting the value you have created. It does not mean you should claim the value for yourself but rather that you can explain what your role has been. If your role was simply sending the report then you have not been a success. 

Successfully delivering on these three measures and you are by definition a success as a business partner! This is also why delivering results is a key priority for business partners. 

What does this mean for would-be business partners? 

Knowing how to be a successful business partner is important for determining 1) if that is a role that appeals to you and 2) to think about what changes you can make today to already start working as a business partner. If you are an accountant today probably you are also responsible for compliance and control-related tasks. Hence, you cannot just let go of them to do more value-adding work.

Still, it makes sense to ask yourself some of these questions… 

Seeing your work through this filter makes a profound difference. No longer will your work be disconnected from the company. Suddenly you cannot help not putting the company’s success at the center of everything that you do. That is why a business partner role (or working as a business partner) is a very meaningful role. 

What difference does it make for you to ask these questions in your current role? Would you want to make some changes right away? If yes, tell us about them in the comments! I am also curious if this makes you less or more interested in becoming a business partner? You can share your view by simply commenting “less interested” or “more interested” in the comments. I hope this gives all accountants reading this a better idea about what it takes to become a successful business partner!

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This was the third article in the series "Becoming a Business Partner". You can read previous articles below. Together with the series "Profiles in Business Partnering" there is a lot more content coming. Do not forget to subscribe to this newsletter to avoid missing a beat!

The Accountants Journey Towards Becoming A Business Partner Unlocked

Your Career Path From Chartered Accountant To Business Partner Defined

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.

All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders" (the last article in the series about our new capability model)

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 9,000 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 50.000+ followers.