finance business partner presentation

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Key competencies for finance business partnering

• Strategy and innovation
• Future of finance

A s companies worldwide struggle with rapid geopolitical, demographic, technological, and competitive changes, finance business partnering offers an opportunity to create a strategic advantage.

The complex and volatile environment forces midlevel managers to make more operational decisions that can impact performance. In a 2018 global Gartner study , 61% of business decision-makers and finance executives reported an increase in the number of operational decisions in the past three years. More than half (57% of respondents) said operational decisions have financial implications and impact profitability.

The Gartner study suggests that poor operational decision-making could compromise upwards of 3% of operating profit before depreciation, and that is not a small number.

It is then no surprise that business leaders need and seek active partnership and collaboration from finance professionals who can understand the goals and overarching strategies of the business, analyse financial and nonfinancial information, and present recommendations to support their decision-making.

While business leaders are happy for the finance team to continue playing the roles of operator (FP&A, core finance, etc.) and steward (compliance, controls, etc.), today's leaders want finance team members to increasingly focus on being strategists (collaborate with business folks to support strategy formulation and decision-making) and catalysts (challenge the status quo and champion finance as well as enterprise-level transformation).

In a loose way, the latter two roles form the essence of finance playing the business partner role.

Finance business partnering is what finance teams do when they create value by providing insights (often data-led), thus influencing their business counterparts to make better decisions.

The leadership hats I wore at Walt Disney Southeast Asia (and in companies I worked for before Disney) — including business operations, sales and distribution, general management, strategy and business development, and, of course, my core area, finance — convinced me of the difference such partnering can make to the business and, indeed, to one's own career.

Now, as a leadership coach and corporate trainer, I like to champion this partnering through workshops, where I am often asked what skillsets equip a finance professional to be a good finance business partner. My response is that it requires a set of new and enhanced skills and a change in our mindset.

But ahead of all that, it is critical to get the basics right: Do the steward and operator roles really well; deliver timely, error-free financial and operating results with unquestionable data quality. Without high-quality systems and data, you will get bogged down in reconciliations and lose insight opportunities, draining your time and credibility as an effective partner.

Next, work on the key competencies required for a finance business partner. From my own experience on both sides of the partnership and my extensive work with business leaders, I have developed a road map that I frequently use in my workshops (see the chart, "Key Competencies for a Finance Business Partner").

Key competencies for a finance business partner

These eight skillsets and six mindsets, based on my experience and conversations I have had with other CFOs, are at the very heart of successful business partnering and crucial for aspiring finance business partners.

To illustrate, a finance business partner who grasps the larger goals of the business and appreciates the changing market landscape will be able to work with the CEO and business unit heads to determine the key drivers for success in each line of business. From that, the finance business partner will arrive at a common understanding of the key performance indicators to be tracked and how they are to be computed.

If we were to think about which of the 14 competencies are flexed in this instance, those that come to mind include intellectual curiosity, commercial acumen, strategic thinking, business insight through analytics, stretching beyond the comfort zone, bias for action, and probably a few others. Depending on the industry and the specific role a finance team member plays, some of these competencies may be more important than others.

How finance business partnering worked at Disney

Here's an anonymised example of finance business partnering with sales that occurred regularly during my time at Disney:

The business case

The brand licensing business (where franchise characters are licensed to third-party merchandise brands) was facing pressure from a key customer for substantially lower royalty rates and more favourable terms for a contract renewal because of growth in volume of business over the years.

The finance business partner team partnered with the sales team to examine the merits of the customer's ask and put together a well-substantiated and compelling counterproposal by:

• Doing a market analysis (using secondary data) to substantiate this customer's market share claimed in different segments and how that had been trending, to verify the growing importance and further potential of this customer.
• Working internally with our content team across multiple lines of business to aggregate information on ongoing and planned investments to increase the appeal of the particular franchise characters (those that this customer sought to license and others we could recommend that they add on) among the target markets. This included (1) future content pipeline and marketing plans for movies/TV shows involving these characters; (2) our consumer insights team adding trend data on how consumer recall scores for these characters have gone up during the existing contract tenure with this customer; and (3) sales putting these in a presentation to show the customer how much they stand to gain by partnering with the highly saleable characters, and thereby aiding the sales team in fending off customers' aggressive ask for lower royalty rates.
• Collecting market intelligence on estimated royalty pricing by competitors (this required some sleuthing, working hand-in-hand with the sales team) and on royalty rates charged by our counterparts in other geographies for licensing the characters to similar product groups, for benchmarking purposes.
• Helping the sales team come up with a well-substantiated counteroffer that was compelling to the customer yet equitable for the company. An example would be to use multiple scenarios of step-down royalty percentages and link them to incremental sales as a win-win proposition and to compute the impact on revenue forecasts to help sales decide the baseline terms and our aspirational terms, ie, our initial offer. Or you could use your cost understanding to identify schemes and marketing support programmes that offer high value to the customer at low marginal cost to us.
• Better still (if the finance business partner has well-honed negotiation skills), supporting the sales team by participating in the actual negotiations with the customer.

Skills to learn

If you wish to equip yourself with these competencies and become an effective finance business partner, here's what you can do, starting today:

• Work to improve your commercial acumen. Understand the value chain of your organisation, and update yourself on industry developments, the competition, the economy, etc. Step out from behind your computer to walk the shop or retail floor, spend time getting to know members of the operating and sales teams, take on projects that give you cross-functional exposure, and follow trade publications and podcasts.
• Network with fellow professionals outside your organisation to share war stories and learn from each other. Join offline and online forums to learn how the latest technological developments can be leveraged to improve finance department productivity and help your business counterparts.
• Seek opportunities to learn and practise your written communication and presentation skills.

And my bonus tip for you is to reflect on what you are going to start doing to add more value and what you are going to stop doing to free up time and mind-space.

Raju Venkataraman, FCMA, CGMA , was CFO and head of strategy and business development for Disney in Southeast Asia before he became a leadership coach and corporate trainer who offers his services globally. He lives in Singapore. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Sabine Vollmer, an FM magazine senior editor, at [email protected] .

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A Step-By-Step Guide to Finance Business Partnering

We cover step-by-step how finance business partnership can analyze and present financial information for strategic insights and decision-making.

Priyaanka Arora

Content Manager

Finance teams

October 13, 2022

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As companies globally struggle with geopolitical, economic, technological, and competitive changes, finance business partnering is in a unique position to create strategic advantages. 

There is a greater demand from the business for finance to drive performance. It comes as no surprise that business leaders expect and seek active partnerships from the finance department and FP&A teams to serve as the center of intelligence, information, and decision-making. 

Strategic finance partnership can analyze financial information, provide strategic insights based on the industry, macroeconomic trends, and competitor dynamics, and present recommendations to support strategic decision-making. 

So the question is, how do you establish a successful finance business partnership? 

Why is it important to establish the finance team as a business partner? 

Traditionally, finance teams played an important role in FP&A, core finance, controls, and compliance. Today, along with this, they are expected to collaborate with business departments to support strategy and decision-making and champion finance and enterprise-wide transformation. 

A strategic finance partnership involves digging deep and learning about the lines of business, figuring out the story the data is telling and developing business insights. 

Plainly put, finance teams provide data-backed insights and they create value by influencing their business counterparts to make better decisions. This is the very essence of finance playing the business partner role. 

What does a financial business partner (FBP) do? 

Let’s start by defining a financial business partner. 

An FBP is defined as a role that the financial department takes up to support and challenge the “business” with an aim to ensure that the strategic path chosen is able to create desired value against acceptable levels of risk. - PwC report

The role of finance, as a business partner entails: 

Turn opportunities and threats into business drivers 

Successful FBPs (cost-efficient, reliable processes, and high-quality insights) can turn opportunities and threats from external factors into drivers for business partnering. Highly effective FP&A departments act as an advisor for the organization. 

Leverage enablers and anticipate constraints 

Finance business partners should know how to make use of the right enablers (such as having consistent and real-time information) and anticipate constraints (such as too much focus on non-value-adding activities). 

Use technology for competitive advantage 

Highly efficient FP&A functions are open to continuously changing technology developments to be prepared to answer future questions or automating FP&A activities that are transactional and highly repetitive in nature. 

Look into the future 

Powerful FBPs should be on the lookout to create new insights by means of in-depth analysis and aptly communicate it to the stakeholders to effectively assess the performance of the business. 

Is FBP an individual role or a team responsibility? 

Although companies have a fixed role of FBP, the team as a whole must think of ways in which they can collaborate with the rest of the organization. Owing to the following responsibilities of the FP&A team, it is only right to establish itself as a strategic decision-making partner. 

Controller: Focus on understanding the business and controlling the cost under budget with accuracy. This includes historical analysis as well as rolling forecasts. 

Advisor: Focus on building relationships with internal and external stakeholders and perform “what-if” scenario analysis on the impact of major business decisions. 

Influencer: Promote financial modeling and driver-based planning to identify the organization’s key business and value drivers and create business plans and budgets based on these drivers. 

Strategic partner: Promote scenario planning to identify the set of uncertainties and drivers that may impact results and protect the business from unnecessary risks. 

How to establish your FP&A team as a strategic business partner? 

For finance to play a greater role as a value creator, it will require a transformation of the function and a change of mindset among business partners. 

In this transformation, the FP&A, as a strategic business partner will play a major role as it helps the organization become more agile, data-driven, and forward-thinking. Here’s how. 

Adopt FP&A best practices 

They include: 

• Undertaking financial analysis to identify trends and patterns in the organization’s financial processes. 
• Preparing reports that the management can use to formulate the company’s operational and financial success.
• Collaborating with departments to collect financial data and consolidate it to prepare the company budget. 
• Creating, maintaining, and updating financial forecasts and financial models. 
• Preparing detailed reports and presentations to support decision-making for investors, executives, and board members. 

Automate manual processes 

The current times of increased volatility call for FP&A teams to rethink the models they use to create financial forecasts and plans . There has been an increased focus on first building scenarios and then thinking about their implications on the business. 

FP&A organizations are also identifying new drivers of performance and creating financial forecasting models such that the outcomes can be tied more closely to underlying organizational drivers and economic variables. 

In addition, finance teams are creating driver-based plans that give them an inherent advantage over their simpler counterparts. 

All this has led to a greater demand for real-time, high-quality, and traceable data. Manually collecting this external data that can be used for identifying what drives the organization forward is difficult and error-prone. 

That’s where automating the FP&A tasks such as: 

• Data preparation,
• Importing data from several business sources and integrations , and 
• Running comprehensive what-if scenarios saves time, allowing teams to focus on value-driven tasks. 

Standardize data and definitions of data

Suppose FP&A collects relevant data for ad hoc analysis using spreadsheets . This is going to take an inordinate amount of time. The next challenge would be standardizing the data-gathering and analysis process. 

To counter this, organizations are turning to cloud-based financial forecasting and planning tool Pigment . These tools gather data from sources across the organization and create a single source of truth to identify trends between different types of data that may have previously gone unnoticed or would’ve been impossible to correlate.

A clear understanding of the factors that have the most impact on financial results enhances strategic planning and the findings can be used to inform decision-making moving forward. 

Invest in an integrated business planning and analytics tool 

The new demands on FP&A have led organizations to consider how technology can help them scale efficiently. 

Integrated business planning software can help decision-makers see and manage trends and exceptions more rapidly, iterate scenarios faster, and understand the likely impact more quickly. 

Here’s how business planning and analytics tool Pigment can help finance and FP&A carve go-forward strategies: 

• Provide features to consolidate and aggregate large amounts of data from all sources, store it, and clean it for analysis. 
• Make dynamic models in a matter of hours. 
• Collect inputs from all departments, surface insights from your data, and connect business cases from across the organization. 
• Run what-if scenarios to plan for contingencies quickly. 
• Use advanced reporting features to build accurate insights and identify trends. 
• Leverage technology to evaluate forecasts, decisions, and outcomes and improve FP&A processes. 

Adopt cross-functional collaboration 

Historically, finance was entrusted with the responsibility of collecting information across the organization. The modern FP&A business leader, who serves as a strategic finance partner is expected to collaborate with other departments across the business. Holding data isn’t enough, and more time should be spent on analyzing data, understanding key business drivers, and conducting meaningful discussions to achieve strategic targets.  

For finance to function as a value-centric entity and a true partner for all other functions, having instant access to information and analysis is critical. In order to move in lockstep with sales, IT, human resources, tech, and other functions as a strategic counterpart, instead of learning about decisions after they go live.

This is only possible when FP&A adopts cross-functional collaboration by breaking down decision silos. The best outcomes are possible when there is transparency and alignment , right from operational deployment to financial impact. 

Focus more on developing meaningful insights 

Armed with technology, next-level FP&A organizations are instrumental in building conviction around strategic moves based on delivering meaningful insights. 

Specifically, FP&A teams, as finance business partners , can help the company determine how and when to steer financial resources toward the highest-value activities. 

An important point worth remembering is that the FP&A function will need to continually shift between planning, execution, and delivering critical business insights that empower the leadership to make bold moves. 

Encourage the entire company to understand the value you deliver as a department

Sales, operations, finance, marketing, and other disciplines, all need and benefit from flexible planning and analysis. All these departments could use the same business planning tool to gain insights and manage performance. 

The FP&A is already evolving as a strategic business partner and challenger. This is why the onus is on the FP&A function to build awareness about their role and show the value they deliver as a department. Afterall, streamlined planning, forecasting, and budgeting can drive major cost savings across the organization. 

Successful finance business partnering can drive business outcomes, not just predict them 

The best-run finance business partnership has a clear roadmap for transforming the finance and FP&A into the profit center. 

A bonus tip for strategic finance partners: Reflect on what you can do to add more value to your role and implement cutting-edge business planning technology to free up your time and mind space.

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How to Be a Better Finance Business Partner: Seven Essential Tips for Success

George liberopoulos.

• June 11, 2024

Are you starting out as a finance business partner ? Essential tips for success focuses on enhancing your influence as a finance business partner focuses on informed decision-making and thorough data analysis. By evaluating cost implications, exploring risk scenarios, and utilising financial insights, you can make decisions that enhance decision-making quality. Conversely, interpreting financial reports, spotting trends, and transforming data into actionable strategies are equally significant. The crucial point is to appreciate both aspects – numerical accuracy and strategic foresight – an unforeseen yet vital alliance for success. Embrace this connection, and you’ll discover your path to growth becomes unmistakably clear.

To excel as a finance business partner, it’s crucial to shift your focus from pure processes to building strong relationships with other business partners, regardless of discipline. Additionally, mastering influence and persuasion techniques, simplifying complex messages, and adopting a coaching mindset are essential steps toward becoming a more effective finance business partner.  Here are seven tips to get you heading in the right direction and making decisions sooner.

Tip 1. Focus on Informed Decision-Making as a Finance Business Partner

As a finance business partner, your role extends beyond number crunching. It involves delving deep into financial analysis and using those insights to drive strategic decision-making. Imagine yourself as a navigator guiding a ship through rough waters; your skill at examining cost implications, conducting risk analysis, and providing comprehensive insights will fundamentally impact the direction and success of your decision making.

Cost-benefit analysis and scenario planning are two indispensable tools for weighing potential outcomes and informing critical decision-making processes.

Cost-Benefit Analysis : This technique enables you to evaluate the expected returns of a particular action against the costs associated with implementing it. By thoroughly analysing the benefits expected from a decision and weighing them against costs, you can provide compelling evidence to guide executive choices.

Scenario Planning : Uncertainty is ever-present in a dynamic business environment. Scenario planning allows you to contextualise future events by creating hypothetical situations and assessing their impact on your organisation.

For instance, consider a scenario where an organisation is contemplating a substantial investment in expansion. Through a well-considered cost-benefit analysis, you can outline the financial rationale behind this move by articulating the potential revenue growth against the outlay required for expansion. Concurrently, employing scenario planning may involve mapping out various economic conditions or market shifts that could influence the success of this expansion strategy.

These tools not only frame data-driven insights but also demonstrate the strategic acumen essential for any proficient finance business partner.

Our Finance Business Partner Training provides comprehensive modules on the art of data storytelling, to assist in better understanding the different forms of data analysis and assist you in better communicating and making informed decisions. 

Bringing this level of awareness in your analysis can improve your contribution as a finance business partner by ensuring that your recommendations are backed by clear data storytelling to steer stakeholders to success.

By honing your skills in data storytelling, you lay a solid foundation for effectively analysing and interpreting data to extract meaningful insights that drive team growth.

Tip 2. Effectively Analyse and Interpret Data

When analysing and interpreting data, think of yourself as an investigator or a detective. You’re looking for clues, patterns, and insights to help the business succeed. To do this effectively, it’s important to have a combination of skills that range from technical abilities to creative thinking. Creating meaningful graphs, charts, and tables can make complex financial information more digestible for your business partners , enabling them to make more informed decisions based on the data you present. Make the complex easy and like all successful detectives, patience and thoroughness in your work is a powerful personal trait.

Moving on from the technical aspect, the ability to interpret financial reports is equally essential. This involves going beyond just understanding the numbers; it requires identifying trends, outliers, and anomalies within the data. 

For instance, spotting a consistent downward trend in sales figures over several months could signal a need for strategic changes. You can propose actionable solutions to reverse the trend by effectively interpreting this data. Whether it involves adjusting marketing strategies, re-evaluating product lines, or exploring new customer demographics, your insights can play a critical role in shaping the future direction of the business.

Think of data analysis as deciphering a complex puzzle. Each piece of information presents a part of the big picture, and your job is to put them all together into a coherent narrative that informs decision-making. Just like a detective piecing together evidence to solve a case, your interpretations of financial data can lead to breakthroughs in understanding the health and performance of the business.  By doing so, you can extract actionable insights that will help drive business strategies and decisions.  Engage key internal stakeholders and understand their world in more detail – their pains and challenges.

Tip 3. Enhance Your Collaborative Business Partnering Skills

Becoming a successful finance business partner requires more than just crunching numbers and analysing data. It’s about actively engaging with operational teams, understanding their needs, and aligning financial strategies to support their goals. When you’re effectively partnering in this way, you’re not only a finance professional but also a strategic advisor who can navigate the complexities of the business landscape.

Impactology’s training program is designed to emphasise practical hands-on experiences through models and frameworks that can be actioned in your day-to-day work. This allows you to build your collaborative skills in a safe learning environment. By doing so, you sharpen your business partnering capabilities and build confidence in navigating various complex business situations by leveraging strong collaborative skills. How would you approach a scenario where you must influence a team to adopt a new strategy? Our training will prepare you for such challenges and enhance your thriving ability.

Tip 4. Improve Communication Across All Levels

Imagine being able to explain complex financial insights in a way that anyone can understand. That’s what effective communication is all about. It’s not just conveying information; it’s about ensuring your audience comprehends and engages with your sharing.  Your success as a finance business partner hinges on the quality of questions from your stakeholders after they’ve reviewed your report and recommendations.  As a finance business partner, you need to be able to present financial data in a way that resonates with non-finance stakeholders and succinctly brief key stakeholders on financial performance. This requires tailoring messages for different audiences, simplifying complex financial data, and delivering compelling narratives that bring the numbers to life.

To tailor messages effectively, understanding the needs and perspectives of the audience is crucial. For non-finance stakeholders, it might mean focusing more on the practical implications of the data rather than the intricate details. For other senior stakeholders, it could involve presenting concise yet comprehensive reports that provide both clarity and strategic insights.

Furthermore, simplifying complex financial data involves breaking jargon and technical terms into easily digestible information. It’s like translating a complex language into something everyone can understand. This involves using visual aids such as charts or graphs and stories to illustrate key points and trends to make the information more accessible and engaging for your audience.

For instance, instead of bombarding your audience with multiple spreadsheets filled with numbers, consider preparing a visually appealing presentation with concise bullet points highlighting the key takeaways backed by well-designed graphs or charts that support your narrative with clear storytelling.

Tip 5. Present Relevant and Compelling Narratives

Delivering relevant and compelling narratives is an art form. It’s about weaving raw data into an engaging story that captures attention and fosters understanding. Storytelling allows you to connect emotionally with your audience around the financial insights you’re presenting. This approach makes the information more relatable, memorable, and impactful.

Storytelling techniques involve framing your presentation around a real-world scenario or problem that the audience can relate to. You’re taking them through the numbers, contextualising figures within a broader narrative that resonates with their experiences.

By incorporating anecdotes or examples into your presentation, you humanise the data and make it more tangible for your audience. Whether illustrating a successful financial strategy using a case study or drawing parallels between market trends and everyday situations, storytelling adds depth and relevance to your communication.

Honing your public speaking, storytelling, and presentation skills is crucial for improving cross-functional communication as a finance business partner. Connecting with various stakeholders through clear and compelling communication is not just a skill; it’s a strategic asset that enhances your influence and fosters collaboration across all levels of the organisation.

Now equipped with refined communication skills, let’s focus on driving business growth through financial objectives.

Tip 6. Driving Business Growth Through Financial Objectives

Finance business partners are critical in shaping and achieving an organisation’s growth. They are instrumental in aligning the financial objectives with the broader organisational goals .  As a finance business partner, you will identify investment opportunities, assess their financial viability, and develop robust strategies to support the company’s expansion plans. This involves careful analysis, forecasting, and understanding the impact of each financial decision on the overall business trajectory.

Developing a comprehensive business case for a new product launch is just one example of the multifaceted responsibilities that finance business partners undertake. This includes collaborating with various departments to understand their objectives, analysing market trends and customer demand, evaluating potential risks and rewards, and crafting financial plans that support these initiatives and drive profitability and sustainable growth.

Strategic financial planning is of utmost importance. It requires a deep understanding of the organisation’s current financial state, long-term goals, and external market forces. This involves leveraging financial data to forecast potential scenarios and implications, enabling informed decision-making regarding investments, resource allocation, and risk management.

Tip 7. Invest in Personal and Professional Development

In the finance realm, knowledge truly is power. Staying informed about industry trends, business changes, regulatory changes, and emerging technologies is crucial for finance business partners to stay ahead. This continuous learning aids in making informed decisions and providing valuable insights that drive business growth.

Attending industry conferences is another powerful way to stay updated and connect with thought leaders within the finance sector. These events provide opportunities to learn from experts, network with peers, and gain fresh perspectives on industry challenges and opportunities.

Moreover, staying abreast of thought leadership within the finance sector can be a game-changer. Engaging with industry-specific resources such as white papers, articles, and webinars informs you about cutting-edge strategies and insights.

This continuous learning broadens your skills and strengthens your ability to add value as a finance business partner. Our training program at Impactology emphasises these aspects of ongoing professional development by offering access to networks, honing in on the belief that well-informed and continuously developing professionals are better equipped to drive business success.

By keeping up with ongoing developments in the finance industry, you are not only enhancing your expertise but are setting yourself apart as a powerful asset within your organisation.

As you embark on this journey of personal and professional development, remember that pursuing knowledge is an ongoing venture that pays tremendous dividends in both personal growth and professional success. Contact us about our Finance Business Partnering Courses for guidance throughout this journey. 

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How to Build Trust and Be a Better Finance Business Partner

• By AFP Staff
• Published: 1/30/2023

Effective business partnering begins with trust. It is the foundation on which everything else is built, including the ability to develop strong business relationships and drive the business forward.

To answer the what and how of this important topic, here are some highlights from Paul Barnhurst and Christian Wattig’s AFP 2022 session, “How Building Trust Enables Effective Business Partnering.”

What is business partnering in finance?

Finance business partnering may be a defined role or a task within a role. A finance business partner supports the business through financial analysis, reporting and forecasting; they also act as a reference point to other parts of the organization when specialized skills are required.

A finance business partner applies broader business and commercial acumen to the insights they bring and advice they provide, seeking to add value by translating complex financial and non-financial information into readily understood concepts and outcomes. This shows up in four distinct ways:

• Accountability. Our role as finance business partners means that we can point to what's causing an issue such as underperformance, which opens the opportunity to do something about it.
• Simplify and question. Finance plays a key role in deciding what information to focus on, as well as knowing what questions to ask and of whom. Ask the right questions and you can get people to challenge the status quo, to think deeper.
• Influence. The best financial analysis in the world means nothing if no one acts on it. Figure out the influencing style that works best for you and put it to work.
• Visibility. How can you look at the business differently? What metrics aren’t being considered? In order to drive the business forward, find the leading indicators that inform your recommendations.

Learn how to develop a closer working relationship between finance and operations in AFP’s FP&A Guide: How FP&A Can Become a Better Business Partner , underwritten by Workiva.

Why building trust is important to business partnering, and how to build it

To effectively collaborate and create change, you first must establish trust. When you have trust, your business relationships improve — and people are more likely to share information with you. When you apply that information to financial forecasts or models, you have the basis on which to make recommendations regarding risks and opportunities.

In his book, The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey states that where trust does not exist, it acts as a tax that diminishes interactions because it adds hesitancy and the need for verification. Where trust does exist, it acts as a dividend that enriches each interaction. Trust is built up over time, and he goes on to explain the four core elements on which credibility and trust are built: integrity, intent, capabilities and results.

Act with integrity

If you want to act with integrity, you need to do three things: Be honest, show consistency and be willing to share bad news. The first should go without saying. Ethics and honesty should be part of your modus operandi in all areas of your life. In terms of consistency, treat everyone the same and show respect to everyone, from the analyst to the CEO.

A willingness to share bad news means not hiding it. Sometimes it could be an emerging risk or poor business performance; in other cases, it may be a mistake that you have personally made. It is important to surface bad news appropriately because people will see that you focus on the correct business outcomes created in an ethical manner.

You can go a step further and demonstrate your leadership abilities by showing how you might prevent a repeat of similar errors, such as process improvements, instituting checks and automating manual controls. This demonstrates that mistakes are an opportunity to learn.

Focus your intent on the business

Having career goals is important, but it’s equally important to remember that you don’t climb the ladder by focusing on yourself. You do so by focusing your intention on the business and how you can meet the business’s needs.

The CFO is the steward of company capital; the role of FP&A is to put that capital to its best use for the company. Your intent for yourself and in holding people accountable (remember that from above?) is to keep everyone focused on the common denominator of serving the business rather than self-serving “empire building.” This alignment builds trust by demonstrating your focus on what your partners need.

Understand individual and team capabilities

FP&A is moving away from the days when a single person or two could meet all the department’s needs. The idea is to build a team that has all the capabilities that meet the business needs.

Thinking about the team overall, it is crucial to perform an assessment to see what you need as a team to meet the business’s needs. You may discover skill gaps within your current team. For example, if your data is a mess, you may need to look at hiring a data analyst. Once you have filled that skill gap, do another assessment. What do you need now?

When it comes to the capabilities of your team, you may find that people have capabilities you have not thought of as assets. For example, an FP&A professional told the story of one person on his team who struggled with traditional finance capabilities. But there was one thing he did really well: drink coffee.

Whenever that team member got a cup of coffee, he went to the various business partners and talked to them. He then reported back to the finance team everything that was happening in the business, allowing them to better prepare for presentations to the business. By supplying this information, he was adding great value to the team and helping them build credibility with the business.

In terms of individual capabilities, the ability to tell a story and influence people is critical. You can have the respect of your colleagues and have amazing ideas, but if you don’t have influence or the ability to convey the story in a way that will bring them along with you, your idea will never be put into play.

Deliver results

The three previous elements of trust help you get everything ready to be a great partner, but there is one more step: You have to deliver results to earn a seat at the table. FP&A is in the perfect position to drive tremendous results in any organization. One of the best examples of this is Amazon Prime. It’s estimated that over 200 million people in the world have an Amazon Prime account. FP&A played a significant role in this success by performing a lot of the critical analysis to say that Amazon shouldn’t just provide free shipping to everyone; it should be based on a subscription service. Finance earned a lot of trust by delivering on that revenue generator.

While there are many ways FP&A can add value to the business, ultimately, delivering results goes a long way toward earning trust. And to deliver results, you need to work hard to understand the business and spend time getting to know their needs instead of just focusing on the financials. Get out and talk to people. Trust starts with demonstrating competency and delivering results.

Learn more about the who, what and why of FP&A with AFP’s 2022 FP&A Handbook .

How to protect psychological safety

You’ve established trust, now what? Now you need to protect psychological safety. A great way to start is to make yourself vulnerable.

Let’s say you’re seeking feedback, genuine feedback, from your direct reports. That can be difficult to get. No one wants to say something negative about the boss’s favorite project.

You can warm things up by sharing with them feedback you’ve received and what you’re doing to improve. Show them that feedback is just data; it allows you to become better at something.

Building on that is creating a sense of psychological safety. A good way to get the ball rolling, to create the mindset shift you need to get them talking, is to run a postmortem on your project. Tell them to assume it’s five years from now and the project has failed spectacularly. Why did it fail? What happened? Thinking of it this way takes people out of the mode of treading lightly around the boss and asks them to think through everything that could go wrong — in order to make it better.

This article was written using information from the AFP 2022 session, “ How Building Trust Enables Effective Business Partnering ,” presented by Paul Barnhurst and Christian Wattig. AFP members can watch a recording of their full session on AFP Learn.

Copyright © 2024 Association for Financial Professionals, Inc. All rights reserved.

See what’s in store at the treasury and finance conference, AFP 2024, October 20-23, in Nashville. Check out the Session Explorer here.

Finance Business Partnering Playbook

A step-by-step guide that takes you on a journey from number cruncher to a strategic business partner..

Finance business partnering is more than just a job title. It’s a unique combination of personality traits, skills, and capabilities that collide to form world-class business leaders and strategy advisors.

If you want to break free from feeling siloed in your role, our step-by-step guide features strategic tips and insights delivered by some of the brightest minds in finance.

Start your journey to becoming an irreplaceable asset to your organization.👇

What’s inside?

In this playbook, you’ll find:

• Why it’s so important for finance professionals to move into a partnership role
• How to get started and demonstrate your value
• Overcoming common barriers and getting a seat at the table
• Key traits and skills of a finance business partner
• Core principles of financial leadership
• How to develop a plan to become a finance business partner

All of this and more comes to you from some of the most influential people in finance business partnering, such as FP&A Prep’s Christian Wattig, The Finance Business Partner’s Andrew Jepson, and Business Partnering Institute’s Christian Frantz Hansen.

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Leverage our Finance Business Partnering PPT template to describe the phenomenon in which finance executives work alongside business departments to render differentiated and proactive support, analysis, insights, and financial information for informed decision-making. Business executives, finance professionals, and entrepreneurs can use this fully customizable deck to discuss how this partnership drives business strategy and supports business objectives by breaking the barriers between management and accountancy. You can also use this set to highlight the business value that the finance business partner provides to the business.

The beautiful graphics included in our template will influence your presentation significantly and leave your audience speechless. The modern and clean slides come with a fresh look, helping you achieve the desired impact and capture the viewers’ attention. Download this set to make your information and ideas stand out!

A Closer Look at the Design

• A pyramid-shaped pattern depicts the attributes of finance business partners in a comprehensible manner.
• The finance business partnering  (FBP) model has been shown clearly and concisely.
• The evolution of finance business partnership weighted in business value (Y-Axis), and mindset ( X-Axis) has been shown through a well-designed graph.
• A comprehensively-designed diagram showcases the finance business partner role precisely for easy understanding.
• A well-designed pattern gives an overview of finance business partnering capability and business demand that helps partners design a high-level strategy for developing the finance department. 
• An infographic with appealing icons presents the key competencies for a finance business partner, i.e., Skillsets and Mindsets, have been explained in an easy-to-understand manner.

A Plethora of Useful Features

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What is finance business partnering?

I used to be a finance director, then I became a sales director, and I’ll show you everything I learned in sales that I wished I’d known when I worked in finance.

Finance business partnering is about three things:

Number one, building relationships. Number two, turning data into insights. And number three, bringing numbers to life.

1. Building relationships

So, let’s get started with number one, building relationships.

When I worked in finance, I never really valued relationships.

Even as a finance director, I didn’t invest enough time in them.

Then I became a sales director and learned that influence is all about relationships.

Here’s the thing, you can’t influence anyone to do anything unless they trust you.

2. Turning data into insights

Number two, turning data into insights.

Data answers the question, what? Information answers the question, why?

And, insights answer the questions, so what, what next, how could we improve?

Accountants tell people what happened last month. Business partners help people answer the question, so what?

3. Bringing numbers to life

And, number three, bringing numbers to life.

Tables of numbers are the worst way to bring numbers to life.

The best way is to take one number, make it big, and make it memorable.

Accountants use tables of numbers. Business partners don’t.

What is finance business partnering: influencing decisions

So, finance business partnering is about three things.

Number one, building relationships. Number two, turning data into insights. And, number three, bringing numbers to life.

And, if you do those three things, you’ll influence, and remember, that’s the point of being a finance business partner, to influence.

So, if you want to be a better finance business partner, here are the three things to do.

Number one, build relationships. Get to know people, find out what’s important to them, and find out how you can help them.

And, number two, turn data into insights. Don’t just tell people what happened, tell them why, and not some crappy why like phasing, accruals, or one-offs. Give them a commercial driver.

And, number three, bring numbers to life. Stop using boring tables of numbers and start making your numbers interesting, engaging and fun.

Get to know you

What’s your influence style.

Calculator, Dashboard, Coach, or Leader?

Take our FBP Ignite survey to learn more about your FBP style and create your personalised development plan

Our Training Options

Read our latest posts.

How Finance Business Partners Drive Strategic Decision-Making

by [email protected] | Jul 23, 2024 | Building your finance function , Business partner hints and tips

Strategic decision-making is more critical than ever. Organisations need to adapt quickly to market changes, technological advancements, and competitive pressures.  One of the key roles that have emerged to help companies navigate these challenges is that of the...

Skills Every Finance Business Partner Should Have

by [email protected] | Jul 12, 2024 | Insights , Strategy & planning

Finance business partners are no longer just working behind the scenes, they're now essential collaborators in strategic decision-making. To succeed in this role, a finance business partner needs a mix of analytical skills, effective communication, strong negotiation...

The Role of Finance Business Partner Training in Modern Business

by [email protected] | Jul 5, 2024 | Insights

The modern finance professional is expected to be a strategic partner, providing critical insights that drive business decisions and enhance organisational performance. This shift has given rise to the concept of the Finance Business Partner (FBP) - a role that blends...

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Finance business partnering guide

Thought leadership report

Published: 02 Sep 2014 Updated: 03 May 2023 Update History

Latest research

Effective finance business partners have been around for over 50 years. The involvement of finance professionals in business decision making, strategy development and driving performance is nothing new. However, we are still asked for guidance on how finance can make a greater contribution to organisational performance.

Our report,  Finance business partnering: a guide provides practical advice for those considering business partnering initiatives and those looking to improve their approach. Here we provide a brief summary of some of the ideas covered – even shorter than the executive summary.

Understanding the business is a fundamental pre-requisite for effective business partnering. Such understanding is gained through ongoing conversations, observation, research and action – action is required to gain feedback and test understanding.

Based on sound business understanding, an objective assessment of finance’s capabilities and the level of demand for business partnering services, a high-level strategy for developing the finance department can be developed, (see Figure 1).

While it may be obvious, it needs to be emphasised that finance’s capability depends on people, organisational structures, systems and processes. The report discusses how key business partnering knowledge, skills and attitudes can be developed, including commerciality and communication skills. We argue that decentralised approaches to finance business partnering better enable business support but increase the risks of finance losing its objectivity.  We also argue that finance needs to be actively involved in system and process developments across the organisation.

Finance business partnering is not necessarily right for all organisations and demand for such services is not a given.  The best way of generating demand is for finance to solve an important business issue but we also discuss some other helpful approaches.

Concerns that finance business partners may get too close to the business remain and need to be guarded against. Personal integrity, senior management support, culture, enforced value statements, whistleblowing and effective controls all have a part to play.

Successful business partners will need both perseverance and adaptability to build and maintain their influence. Perseverance to cope with inherent tensions in the role and to overcome inevitable setbacks.  And adaptability to deal with increasing demands for organisational sustainability, new approaches to outsourcing and developments in big data and analytics.

Our report  is based on discussions with members and experts, reviewing practitioner and academic research and our own experience.  As well as advice and food for thought it also includes a number of case studies.  We hope you find it useful. If you would like to comment on this report or discuss the content further, please email [email protected] .

• Download the full report

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Further reading on business partnering is available through the articles below.

• 01 Dec 2023
• Daniel Butcher
• Strategic Finance
• 01 Nov 2022
• Rebecca G.Fay, Kenneth Herbst, Josh Lobs, Norma R.Montague
• 01 Aug 2019
• Andrew Jepson
• 20 Mar 2019
• CFO Innovation Asia

You are permitted to access articles subject to the terms of use set by our suppliers and any restrictions imposed by individual publishers. Please see individual supplier pages  for full terms of use.

Finance business partnering: a guide

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• Update History 02 Sep 2014 (12: 00 AM BST) First published 03 May 2023 (12: 00 AM BST) Page updated with Latest research section, adding further articles on business partnering. These new articles provide fresh insights, case studies and perspectives on this topic. Please note that the original article from 2014 has not undergone any review or updates.

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Finance business partnering

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Finance business partnering makes an important contribution to improving decision making and ensuring the sustainable success of business.

In many organisations, the accounting and finance function is being transformed to be more effective. This is being enabled by developments in information technology, allowing management accountants to extend their role to include finance business partnering. Finance business partnering makes an important contribution to improving decision making and ensuring the sustainable success of business. It also widens the career opportunities for management

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