Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

Over the past many weeks we’ve uncovered that succeeding with business partnering is hard! We’ve highlighted the five biggest roadblocks to success and tried to address how to remove them. Needless to say, you have a massive challenge on your hand if you’re a business partner today or a leader wanting to implement a business partnering concept.

That’s why in this last article in the series “The Path To Successful Business Partnering” we’ll look at the path you must tread on your journey. What implementation steps should you take and in what order? Have you packed your bags and are ready to go on the journey? 

How do you accelerate your influence and impact? 

If you’re successful with business partnering you’re influencing decisions and making an impact. Hence, implementing business partnering is all about accelerating this. Here are the three key steps to take. 

• Build the foundation: First, you must clarify roles and responsibilities and build a framework for WHY, WHERE, WHAT, and HOW of business partnering. This will be the backbone of your business partnering operating model. Then you must get the team in place which will likely be a mix of existing talents and a few external role models that can lead the charge.
• Start a development program: Then you start developing the people ideally through a formal development program, but it can also be as simple as intense on-the-job training coupled with frequent coaching. Don’t be afraid to ask for help in this process either from consultants or other companies that have proven success within business partnering. The key principles are that you make it concrete and apply a constant cycle of practising, failing, and learning.
• Be strong in your execution: To succeed with business partnering it requires constant leadership attention. If the leader doesn’t prioritize this properly and instead spends time on finance operations, then you’re destined to fail. The leader must get the team excited about the journey, be a role model and instil a growth culture in the team and finance function. This requires a consistent effort over a long time. Remember it’s a culture change that we’re trying to make happen here. It’s not just a few tactical changes. 

It’s crucial that you have a structure for rolling out your business partnering concept but maybe most importantly as also described in previous articles you must make this a top priority if you want to succeed. 

It doesn’t have to be hard, but it will be difficult 

Undoubtedly you will not find it to be a walk in the park to succeed with business partnering, however, you shouldn’t make it harder than it is. By using a well thought out structure and building a solid plan you’re already well underway with implementing business partnering in your finance function.

Too often companies have made it hard on themselves but not considering how to tackle each of the roadblocks. Then they end up spending a lot of money and wasting talent in an unsuccessful business partnering implementation that not only results in employees losing confidence in management but also draws Finance even further away from its business stakeholders even the exact opposite was the intention.

Don’t make those mistakes but lay out a path to successful business partnering as described in this series and you’ll find the journey to where you’re going a lot easier. 

If you have a case study of a business partnering implementation you worked on or some individual challenges you would like to highlight, then don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ve previously featured examples of how business partners have created value and there’s definitely room for broadcasting more of those. 

This was the eight and final article in the series “The Path To Successful Business Partnering” where we’ve tackled the most common challenges to effective business partnering. You can read the previous article(s) below and at the Business Partnering Institute, we hope that we’ve inspired you on how to successfully implement business partnering in your company or give you tips and tricks on how to overcome roadblocks you’re currently facing. Don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can help you with at [email protected].

The Path To Successful Business Partnering

There's Always Time For Business Partnering

Business Partners Must Think Like A Profit Center

What It Takes To Become A Business Partner

To Succeed With Business Partnering You Must Make It A Top Priority!

"You're A Business Partner Now, Go Create Value"

The Business Partnering Leadership Challenge

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.

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

You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?

Building A Team Of Finance Business Partners

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 32.000+ followers.