For Your Strategy To Succeed You Must Go Liquid
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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One of the worst things about budgeting is that it tends to lock in your resource spend for the coming year. Too often we hear,
“If it’s not in the budget, you can’t spend the money.”
But what if things change and one initiative won’t work, but another would that requires more of the budget? Sometimes, if it’s not in the budget, both initiatives will suffer, and less value will be created—or perhaps value is even destroyed because both initiatives will suffocate, and the investments already made are lost. Logically, this doesn’t make sense. If it sounds like your FP&A department, you need to prepare for change!
Liquid resourcing is the answer
So what kind of change should you make? I have previously advocated that you must go to a model where the “bank” is open 24/7/365 so that funds can always be allocated to sound initiatives, and initiatives that don’t pan out will be closed—as opposed continuing to spend the money just because it was in the budget. This should be a simple and sound principle; however, in most companies, resources are already tied up in fixed or semi-fixed expenses and committed investments. That’s why we need to make a few changes to get there. Here are some concrete tips on how you can do it.
- To be able to spend money, it needs to be available. This means you should be freeing up resources continually, so you have them available once you need to deploy them.
- Move to an 80% budget, where at least 20% of your resources can always be contested and used for the big moves you’re trying to make.
- Start charging opportunity costs for managers to use resources—meaning they need to deliver a positive economic profit to be allowed to spend resources.
As you can see, the main principle is to free up resources, so you have the money to spend. FP&A should always have a list of the next initiatives in line to be cut to free up resources. Just because an initiative got approved once it doesn’t mean it has carte blanche to spend all the allocated resources. It must deliver on the promised milestones and if not, it should be cut and considered a sunk cost.
FP&A should own the company money box
This is not to say that FP&A gets to decide who can spend money and who can’t. However, the department should govern the principles for spending money and facilitate the constant resource reallocation in the company. FP&A must also take responsibility for ensuring that resources are always available to spend on moving the strategy in the right direction.
This will require skillful stakeholder management from the FP&A department, which is why it’s also recommendable to apply a business partnering approach to get to a point where business managers and executives trust FP&A’s “no” as much as they’ll happily trust the “yes.”
However, this is a must-win battle for FP&A. If there are no liquid resources in the company, how can you make any headway toward achieving strategic success? There are clear tangible actions here for FP&A to implement, so tell me: What more do you need to fundamentally change your company’s resource allocation with the aim to increase the odds of succeeding with your strategy?
This was the sixth article in the series "FP&A Transforms Strategy". You can read previous articles below.
Why FP&A Must Transform The Strategy Process
Stop Planning. Start Travelling. Strategy Is A Journey
How Do You Know Your Plan Is The Best Plan?
Pick Your Winners And Feed Them Big Time
Budgets Don't Create Value. Big Moves 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.
An Open Letter To The CFO: Are You Ready To Transform FP&A?
The Future of FP&A – Two Ways To Take the Reins
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)
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 34.000+ followers.
I think this is a really interesting approach Anders Liu-Lindberg?and I like the principles that sit behind it. Reduce the 'if you don't spend it you lose it' mentality that goes on a few months before year-end. The issue I see goes far beyond the numbers and that is the issue of trust and perceived equity across the organisation (note I said 'perceived' as the principles you refer to would ensure 'real' equity). I believe that these are the 2 key foundations to what you have suggested succeeding. Thoughts?
General Manager at Anthony International, MBA, BSBM
5 年Unless you gave a flex budget that is adjusted quarterly to address rapidly changing requirements!
Director of Finance at SERBAN - Soluciones digitales, biometrías y otros servicios
5 年One of objectives for FP&A or finance is to create value promoting projects with higher value. Budget is like the roadmap but should be flexible for new ways to achieve the objectives of the company.
Finance & IT Data Analytics Specialist
5 年If you want to support IT technology innovation, you need to separate the innovation budget from the ongoing operational budget. There should still be conversations that prioritise the initiatives, but don't cut the budget first.
Sales & Business Coach for Entrepreneurs at a Crossroads | My clients call me the Oprah of Sales | Wisdom Whisperer |
5 年As a salesperson, the frustration of hearing ‘it’s not in the budget’ is something I’ve had to face more than a few times in my career. It’s something that some like being able to say as a way to get someone like me to go away, but it’s been very frustrating for those who want to make the moves that are in the best interest of the company but are financially tied and unable to. I like the incentive you laid out of managers having to prove a positive ROI for getting more of the cash flow that they need to make the budget adjustments work. That sounds like a win-win strategy ensuring prudence and more fiscal responsibility.