From Finance Policy Owner to Business Partner and Player

One of the recurring issues for Finance Directors over the past decade or so has been the question “How can my Finance function improve its added value?” Partly this question has arisen from business-wide initiatives like outsourcing; partly it’s been the result of pressures from CEOs or other executives and senior managers; and partly it’s been driven from Finance itself.

A first response to this question has often been to change the structure of the Finance organisation. Dave Ulrich, probably the most influential academic on this subject in the Western world, has a lot to answer for. Thanks to him, the terms ‘Service Centres’, ‘Centres of Expertise’, ‘Business Partners’ and even ‘Business Players’ have entered the lexicon.

But, as every manager eventually discovers, changing the structure is not enough by itself to change the contributions of a group of people. What’s needed even more is a transformation in mindset and – behind that – a change strategy designed for influence and impact.

Mindset Shift

It’s over a decade since Finance functions began making the mindset shift required to move from a focus upon “what I do” to “what contribution I make to delivering business performance”.  The implications of this shift have proved to be a more challenging than many realised.

The shift to a demand driven business performance approach calls for radical change in how Finance professionals see their purpose and role. Finance staff often define their roles narrowly. The challenge is to build an organisation that understands and aligns with business goals rather than finance and accounting products and services.

Start with the end in Mind

In our experience success comes when the Finance Director and Finance leadership team can effectively answer the question “Business Partnering - for what business purpose and outcome?”  Key discovery questions might include:

• What are the performance and customer priorities for the business?
• What are the finance and organisational capabilities that are critical to the successful delivery of these priorities?
• What is the business leadership and staff view of the current Finance contribution and how this needs to change?
• How does the current Finance strategy, structure, operations, culture, systems and leadership need to adapt to meet both the business challenges and stakeholder requirements?
• What do we mean by Finance Business Partner, is it a role or a way of working?
• If Business Partnering is about a new role what is its business purpose, key responsibilities and success measures?
• What are the critical skills for Finance Business Partners in this business and how do we develop them?
• How do we engage the business and our customers and lead the changes in role and contribution effectively?
• What does success look and feel like and how will we know when we have got there?

Discovering the answers enables a business performance (demand driven) mindset from the outset.

These are equally powerful questions, suitably adapted, for an IT or HR Director - many support functions face similar challenges.

Revolutionary or Evolutionary Path?

For most Finance functions the transition from a supply driven policy focus to a business performance focus is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary path. To earn the right to advance along the business relationship path a Finance function must first deliver on the policy and process service basics: “...don’t talk to me about partnering or becoming a player on the business team if you can’t deliver an effective accounting service or budget process”

Some organisations have become so seduced by the idea of business partnering they have taken their eye off the importance of the finance policy and process basics. Another way of seeing it is that good governance is an essential pre-requisite to providing partner and player relationship roles. Each of these roles is vital to overall success of a Finance function.

Key Transformation Lessons

Some Finance Directors choose to lead a revolutionary path to partner/player relationships but like all revolutions they carry with them a significant risk of failure. Essential pre-requisites for this path are likely to include:

• A significant change in the business requirements where the need for finance partner/player elements of the strategy become critical to business success
• A highly regarded Finance Director who already has the respect and trust of the business team – this might be track record or because he/she has been recruited with a transformation agenda in mind
• Motivation, resilience and capability in the wider Finance team to lead rapid change
• The time and will to develop Business Partner/Player capability and the recognition that only some will make the journey – likely to require external hires to key roles
• A willingness on the part of the organisation to take some pain along the way in order to accelerate the required changes

In our experience however most Business Partner/Player paths are evolutionary and the key lessons are:

• Develop shared agreement across the Finance team about how the function needs to evolve to meet business  requirements
• Conduct a diagnosis of where you are now by engaging all the key business stakeholders in the proposed change – understand the customer perspective and service improvement priorities
• Be careful to under-promise and over deliver on the change outcomes
• Make the space (budget, priorities and capacity) to focus upon both core services and the new relationship goals
• As new structures (often matrix responsibility) emerge ensure that “who does what” is clearly defined
• New roles and contributions are often required from line managers and staff – develop the customers in addition to Finance team members
• Finance Business Partners/Players need to understand the new leadership behaviours and business skills that will be required before any investment in development
• Review the potential (motivation, mindset, core skills) of individuals to make the required transitions before investing in development
• Develop Finance Business Partners/Players by working on real business challenges – practice the demand mindset

How your Finance Function can improve its added value

Value Partnership has over ten years’ experience of working with Finance Directors in international businesses to strengthen the contributions of Finance to business performance. If you are considering how best to build the Finance capability of your business, then why not come and tap into our experience?

Geoff Rogers, Director
Value Partnership LLP