Why Finance Is Like An All-Seeing Eye In The Company
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
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“Get back in your box”, joked the sales manager when the accountant suggested a new strategy at a management meeting. The other managers laughed, but the CEO shook her head. “Finance isn’t just about spreadsheets,” she said. “This is a good idea. Let’s dig deeper.”
This is a real story, and familiar to many of us. We’ve all attended those meetings where each function presents its summary of the month’s activities. They tell tales of action, success, and people going the extra mile. They paint pictures of customer experience and the world around the business. Amid all this color, Finance is seen as just the record keeper, a dull pragmatist stripping good stories down to bare figures. This image is outdated and unwarranted, and changing it is down to us.
Although Finance is in a unique position in every company, the incredible cross-value chain perspective that we have is not always obvious to other functions. Often we fail to recognize that all-seeing eye in ourselves. We have to acknowledge our strength and unlock this unfair advantage, building strong relationships and collaborating across functions to help create the best possible solutions to business challenges.
Collaboration and Communication
Every transaction in the company touches the finance function at some point. We can see the impact on the company’s profits of short-term and long-term decision making, and we have the ability to reverse engineer those insights to identify strategies that build value. The danger for Finance is that in our day-to-day role we express everything, naturally, in financial terms. It’s part of the job, of course. We have to produce specific, prescribed reports and analyses for stakeholders and regulators. However, talking spreadsheets, financial statements, and accounting jargon with engineers, sales managers, and HR creates an immediate barrier between us.
To foster collaboration, we need to break down these barriers and build trust and confidence. We have to speak the language of the business and see the bigger picture - good communication builds trust and trust enables collaboration. We have to present our knowledge and insights in the context of each function and of the wider world. Combining the depth of specialist knowledge that exists within each function and the insights of the all-seeing eye of Finance builds a cohesive team that can work together to find the best possible solutions to business challenges.
Changing perspectives for success
What do we need to do to unlock the advantage of the all-seeing eye? We have to change our perspective on the business. Our traditional snapshots of company activity are tightly focused and monochrome, sliced and diced into assets, liabilities, and equity for reporting. We need them to be panoramic and full of color and life. By widening our focus to see the background and context to the numbers, we can develop an understanding of what they mean to our peers in other functions, to the customer, and to the business leaders with whom we partner.
It’s never too soon to change your perspective. What can you do right now to unlock this unfair advantage?
A Finance function with a holistic and customer-centric perspective can help create the best possible solutions to business challenges. Grab the opportunity with both hands.
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This was the fourth article in my series "Unlocking the unfair advantage of Finance". You can read the previous article(s) below.
If you want to learn more about how finance professionals can influence decision-making then check out my latest article series "The Art of Decision-Making" below.
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If you want to become a better business partner, 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.
The Mindset Change Checklist For Finance Professionals ?(the last article in a series about the mindset change that finance and accounting professionals should make to become business partners)
It's Time To Decide If You Want To Be A Business Partner ?(the last article in a series about the personality traits of business partners)
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)
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)
Anders Liu-Lindberg ?is the co-founder and a partner at the?Business Partnering Institute ?and owner of the largest?group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering ?on LinkedIn with more than 10,000 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 close to 65.000 followers and 140.000+ subscribers to my blog. Recently I became an advisory board member at?Born Capital ?to help identify and grow the next big thing in #CFOTech.
Account Manager
3 年Great story, thanks for sharing. I must admit, I? was fortunate to be encouraged to breack barriers and think outside of the box. This is what I love in being a business partner.? One of the directors I worked with in my early FP&A carrier in Alcatel Lucent, now Nokia, forced me to go to the lab? and see the equipment I have seen as numbers on? the spreadsheets.? He was so passionate so his passion got contgeouse. This was an eye opening experience I will never forget and a lesson I teach my employees. If you would like to make a difference learn the business,? and speak the language they speak.?
Helping FP&A Professionals provide value to their businesses | Founder of The FP&A Guy | Host of 3 popular Finance podcasts | Microsoft MVP
3 年Anders thanks for sharing and not surprised someone told the finance person to “Get back in your box” In reading your article the part that jumped out to me is developing trust with your business partners. When the business has trust in us we can start to drive changes and create value. Building trust requires stepping our from our spreadsheet and taking the to learn and work with the business.