Firstly let me state that I think AI is hugely important for any finance professional or function in the future.
I love it and use it daily (and no it didn’t write this newsletter)
But when I read all of the focuses of CFOs, the Future of Finance, etc in 2025 a focus on Finance Business Partnering has suddenly disappeared.
It’s been the top 3 focuses of CFOs for more than a decade.
And now it’s not.
And it’s not because every finance team has nailed it. I wouldn’t get daily phone calls if that was the case.
It’s because a new shiny toy called AI has come along and is demanding people’s attention….NOW!
It’s a bit like having an issue with your heart and then the doctor says you have a brain tumour. Focusing on the brain tumour is probably worth it, but the heart problems don’t magically disappear.
Am I concerned? Not really
Am I frustrated? Certainly.
And here are the reasons why….
The first thing to understand about most of the white papers and reports written about the future of finance is that they are marketing tools
Who are the authors?
They are written by either leading consultants or software houses who have a fundamental interest in selling those exact same products for those exact same consultants or software houses.
And AI products are big business with big value.
And FBP products (which is usually training) are not big business.
It’s like this newsletter and even this bit now. I sell training for finance teams around business partnering tools and techniques. If I was to write a marketing report or white paper, guess what I am going to write about.
That’s right the benefits of the stuff I sell.
The second thing to understand about all of this AI hype is once it is in and working well, then what.
Finance teams have automated the pants off things for years. We’ve constantly done it since the day we discovered our first pivot table, vlookup and sumif formula.
It helped us free up time to work on forward looking activities, insights and generally helping the business instead of reporting on the business.
But we didn’t do that.
We sit here today and finance teams are still frustrating non finance teams by delivering things that are not actionable. Or worse, still remain at their desk creating another spreadsheet with more details for something nobody wanted.
And finance teams still remain at their desks, either too scared or don’t know how to engage the business and get themselves involved in the critical issues.
Those finance business partnering skills I often talk about.
So AI is not more important than FBP.
They both need to co exist together.
A focus on AI without the focus on developing FBP skills (the skills needed to work with others to get stuff actioned) means you develop a team that gets data and information together quicker. And AI generated insights and suggestions. But nothing is actioned from it, because you still need humans to do that
That sort of approach leads you down the path of a cheap lean finance team who still just delivers compliance or recommendations nobody actions. Effectively an IT department that runs reports.
Which is ok if you want your finance team to be like that.
A focus on FBP without leveraging AI and the robots, means less speed and volume, but way more value.
Their insights will be solid and they will have the skills to get them actioned. There just won’t be as many of them.
Which is also ok if that’s what you want your finance team to be.
The question every finance leader needs to ask is what is your preference.
And how can you do both – becuase if your brain is strong and your heart is not then you are in trouble (and vice versa)