FP&A

Level-up your business partnering skills

Want to enhance your business partnering skills? We’ve collated these insights to help you on your journey to becoming a better business partner.

Are you looking to enhance your business partnering skills? We have gathered valuable insights to guide you on your journey to becoming a better business partner. From the impact of unsatisfactory decision-making to the key competencies required for successful finance business partnering, we delve into expert recommendations and practices that can help you deliver tangible business value.

• According to Gartner, finance business partnering should consistently support business decision-making to deliver tangible business value. Unsatisfactory decision-making can cost large companies up to 3% of profits
• FM Magazine suggests that key competencies for finance business partnering include intellectual curiosity, commercial acumen, strategic thinking, business insight through analytics, stretching beyond the comfort zone, and bias for action.
• McKinsey recommends strong partnerships for business relationships, as they set a clear foundation and emphasize accountability within and across partner companies. Metrics should be used to gauge success, and partnership strategies should be updated when necessary to create more value.
• The Association for Financial Professionals suggests five practices for effective FP&A teams. The first practice is strong business partnering skills. This allows FP&A teams to transform into a forward-looking function that makes decisions and allocates capital for the future.
• Deloitte UK’s Finance Business Partnering survey found that finance’s strategist and catalyst roles mainly benefit from improved business partnering. This includes making better decisions (76%), enabling strategic initiatives (58%), and improving financial performance (56%)‍
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