I’ve covered the first 2 of our 5 levers for successful finance business partnering in my recent e-mail bulletins:
Lever No. 1: Identify and measure business value priorities - key business decisions.
Lever No. 2: Establish a ‘business-value’ Finance organisation.
Next up we’re going to look at the skills and capabilities needed for pro-active business partnering - Lever No. 3.
Most Finance Directors say that having the right people with the right skills is their number one priority for delivering business value from Finance.
Yet, in my experience not many FDs identify the specific capabilities needed by their finance business partners, as opposed to general skills like ‘presenting with impact’ or ‘influencing skills’.
As a result a lot of learning and development money gets spent on general ‘soft skills’ training - presentation skills, negotiation skills etc. Does this really drive more business value?
Worse still, a lot of FDs simply don’t invest in the skills development of their ‘business-facing’ finance teams at all. We’re more likely to cut the training budget part-way through the year!
Both of these tactics are a missed opportunity or a waste of money.
Really smart FDs link skills development needs directly to their top priority business decisions (Lever No. 1).
If pricing is your number one business value driver, then focus your training for negotiation skills on pricing strategies. Or focus your training for ‘how to challenge and influence colleagues’ on commercial and pricing decisions.
This will give you a pay-back from your training investment - link the training to the specific business issues that drive the most business value.
Through our work with clients we’ve identified the 4 ‘Capability Quadrants’ you need for your Finance teams to deliver more business value:
1. Value Finance capabilities are really a ‘ticket-to-the-game’. They range from accurate reporting and managing risks at the lower end of the value scale, through to providing clear business information, with analysis and insight at the higher end.
2. Business Acumen and Knowledge is the next most important group, without which it’s very hard for Finance to earn the right to have a seat at the business management table.
3. Engagement and Communication. ‘Does my finance partner communicate with me by e-mail and spread-sheets, or do they pick up the ‘phone and come to my office to challenge and influence my decisions?’ Do they build business relationships?
4. Leadership. When you’re working alongside experienced business managers it can be hard to demonstrate strong leadership from within Finance. But this is the key difference between being ‘good’ at business partnering and being ‘great’. When the Head of your Business Division asks you to stand in for them, as their lieutenant, then you know you’ve hit the sweet-spot!
We’ve identified the top 5 skills for each of our 4 ‘Capability Quadrants’ in a Best Practice report on Finance Business Partnering. If you’d like a copy of the report, please go to our website www.arcusc.com to download the report. Or feel free to drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you a copy [email protected]
Over the coming weeks in our business partnering bulletins we’ll step through each of our 4 Finance Capability Quadrants. We’ll start next week with Value Finance capabilities, by looking at the ‘management information value-stack’.
By Adrian Willott, from: www.arcusc.com