Why Did You Become A Business Partner – Ranu Sharma

Business partnering has for years been quite intangible to people. What is it? How do we do it well? How do I measure success? All questions that need good answers for us to become better business partners. However, what would be better than going out and asking people that hold a business partner role today about how they see the role and what it takes to succeed?

That’s why I’m now putting a shout out to any business partner out there who wants to tell his or her story! The first one to have caught the ball is Ranu Sharma, a Senior Finance Business Partner at Vocalink, a recently acquired subsidiary of Mastercard. She’s also an ambassador for the educational charity Working Options and frequently carries out motivational talks among young people to help them achieve their life goals. That’s the sign of a real business partner that just can’t stop when the work is seemingly done!  

In this series, I’ll ask a few essential questions. 

1. Why did you become a business partner?
2. Tell us about the role you have today?
3. Tell us about a few successes you’ve had in your time as a business partner?
4. Tell us about what’s hard about being a business partner
5. Is there any advice you would like to share with other business partners or people who aspire to be?

I could, of course, just write some generic or theoretic thoughts about these questions but telling people’s stories is just so much more powerful! Here’s Ranu’s story. 

Yes to Finance. No to Back-office! 

Why did you become a business partner? 

“I always knew that numbers were my strong point, but I also knew that I had character and an outgoing personality. I could never see myself sitting in a back-office environment churning out reports and passing them on. I wanted to be at the forefront of the business, presenting to my seniors on what had happened and what it meant financially. I wanted to give my views and opinions on what I think we should do to change future performance which for me, underpins the mind of an effective finance business partner. I am a real ‘people person’ and I wanted a job that combined my two skillsets. Business partnering was the best way to achieve this combination.”

Ranu sounds ideally suited to be a business partner although it’s important to say that you don’t have to be a people’s person to be a business partner. We must recognize though that building strong relationships is crucial to successful business partnering hence it’s a skill you must acquire if it doesn’t come naturally to you.

Tell us about the role you have today?

“I hold the role of Senior Finance Business Partner for Mastercard’s recently acquired subsidiary, Vocalink. I oversee the UK cost base, business partnering with SVPs of various business divisions on leading the budget and forecasting process, business case approvals, representing finance at monthly board meetings, explaining their performance whilst emphasizing on risks and opportunities and day to day business partnering on any pressing issue they may have. It is a challenging environment but one that I thrive in.”

A typical day of a business partner and what’s typically found is that business partners must manage two-three levels up with their stakeholders. Typically, a senior business partner supports a VP or even, in this case, an SVP. That’s a very challenging task in itself!

Tell us about a few successes you’ve had in your time as a business partner?

“I have held numerous roles within instantly recognizable brands such as British Airways, Dixons Carphone and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).

British Airways was particularly challenging given the sheer pressures that airlines are facing with fuel tax, union strikes and political issues. I held the position of Finance Business Partner for Global Inbound Catering in my time there, whereby I was partnering with the Head of Catering and his team of account managers, as well as the Head of Procurement.

This meant it was a real juggling act to ensure things like contract renewals/pricing negotiations (procurement focused) were executed successfully with the best possible outcome, as well as trying to help the teams (account managers) understand their numbers and execute any project deliverables in a timely and cost-efficient manner. I worked on some great projects and contract renewals which meant significant costs were saved in the long run. 

IHG was another great business facing similar challenges to those of BA. In my role of Performance Strategy Manager, I had significant involvement in looking at the hotel performance across Europe and business partnering with the Commercial Director on ways we could track and improve performance. I found myself presenting the importance of these metrics to some of IHG’s major franchise owners and saw 6 consecutive months of improvement across a portfolio of hotels.”

 As business partners, we must create tangible results in the form of value creation. We must be able to measure and document our impact. Not to claim it for ourselves but to put even further emphasis on the value that business partners bring to the table. 

Tell us about what’s hard about being a business partner? 

“For me, one of the hardest things about being a business partner is dealing with different people with different expectations. In my experience, some of my stakeholders have been financially switched on and the conversations have been easy and more manageable. They understand your concerns and are happy to accept your views as more often than not, they agree or had thought of that, to begin with. 

However, you do get some stakeholders that may not be as ‘in tune’ with the performance of their area and don’t believe that they need to know, as you are the one that has the word ‘finance’ in your job title. It is our job to partner and guides stakeholders into understanding their performance for a particular period. However, at the very least, I would expect my stakeholder to know how many units they sell and at what price within their division, which sometimes is not always the case. Breaking this barrier can be somewhat challenging.”

Building relationships can be very challenging especially if there’s no initial willingness to engage with the business partner from the stakeholder. However, I’m yet to meet a business stakeholder that doesn’t want help achieving his or her targets. Hence, we might just need to convince them of our abilities first so just use “surprise and deliver”. Instead of waiting for them to tell you how you can help you must identify an area yourself and then just start helping. Once they see the positive impact you have they’ll start to bring you into their decision-making. 

Is there any advice you would like to share with other business partners or people who aspire to be? 

“Always treat your stakeholders like your customers. You have a level of expertise that they don’t necessarily possess and therefore they are turning to you for help. You need to partner with them so that you can understand from them what is happening in their business, so that you can then account for that risk/opportunity in finance terms i.e. what will it do to their performance and how can we mitigate risk or capitalize an opportunity.

Don’t just interact with your stakeholders’ when there is work to be done. This is really key for me. Stakeholders are customers; give them good customer experience. Don’t just meet up because there is a budget process around the corner or month-end is coming up; grab a coffee, check-in on them. Ask your customer if he/she needs anything so that they really feel that support from you. The more interaction there is, the stronger the relationship.  

Scrap emails where you can. Personal interaction is the best way – it makes a person or set of people feel important. Anyone can send an email – it is a convenient, effective and a lazy way of communicating! Try (if you can) to talk to your stakeholders in person. Tone and body language all add weight to a conversation. If meeting personally isn’t possible, pick up the phone or Skype. Email really should be the last resort. 

Kill it with kindness. This doesn’t mean be a pushover, it means to be smart. If we fell out with our stakeholders’ over every differing opinion, we wouldn’t survive in any business partnering role. Being a true business partner is a test of character and resilience. You must understand the art of challenging whilst remaining respectful and professional. Always take a step back before responding to a difficult stakeholder. It could save your relationship in the long run!” 

I think the first line says it all “Always treat your stakeholders like customers”. This is key for succeeding as a business partner. If you always put your customer at the heart of everything you do success comes a lot easier. Why is that? That’s because your stakeholder thinks like a merchant who is only buying your services if you bring value to the table and has his or her best interests at heart. 

This was the first instalment in the series “Why Did You Become A Business Partner?” and I’m hoping to add a lot more instalments to it. If you’re willing to answer these five questions and want to have your story broadcasted to 1,000-2,000 finance professionals then get in touch now and we’ll start producing your story too! Remember this helps other professionals become more successful in their careers so what you’re really doing is paying it forward. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to do?

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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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

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How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

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 35.000+ followers.