When I first started working in a business unit I was a firm believer that the way I was going to get ahead was to build awesome reports, provide great commentary about what was happening and why and visualise information into dashboards so my stakeholders could distill it.
And if that didn’t work – just create more reports, even more detailed commentary and produce more dashboards.
Once I nailed that though I was then left with “well what do I do now”
And it was then I realised my real value as a contributor to the organisation was not as someone who was reporting the numbers, but someone who could improve the numbers.
Which is where business partnering comes in.
Sure highlighting what’s happened and why accruately has a place. Its effectively what finance is built off and gives us credibility. But in the future less of that will be done by humans in finance and more will be done by robots in finance.
Which leaves every finance professional who works in an organisation with one choice.
Continue doing things the robots can replace me with. Or learn some other skills they can’t replace…..and those skills are your business partnering skills.
Helping the other functions navigate through important decisions and the execution of them is where finance can bring it’s real value.
And you are only able to do that if the other functions want to bring you into their world. Do they see you can add value through your core competency and do you do it in a way that is effective?
Often we focus on the first, whereas its the second that gets you a foot in the door with other functions. No matter how good your analysis is, if they don’t enjoy working with you and trust you, all of the analysis in the world isn’t going to shift them.
And so since 2016 I have dedicated the rest of my career to helping finance professionals do this FBP thing properly.
And the reason it is so important……
Because Once The Robots Arrive, The Only Thing Left Will Be Business Partnering…