Fact or fiction? The independent business partner: Global

This paper is based on discussions between finance professionals from leading companies and consultants based in London, Singapore, Warsaw and Johannesburg, between January 2011 and April 2012. The aim was to provide a picture of the opportunities and challenges that finance transformation is creating, with particular regard to the independence and objectivity of the finance function and its professionals.

The global discussions sought to build on some of the trends and findings established by the CIMA Centre of Excellence at the University of Bath School of Management, which was established to research the state of, and changes to, the finance function and determine best practice in the development of finance professionals. The first phase of this identified issues that concern both the challenges and the opportunities with regard to the independence of finance professionals as they take on closer business partnering roles.

Topics covered:

Management accounting: Business: Strategy, Advanced
Management accounting: People: Influence, Advanced
Management accounting: People: Collaboration & partnering, Expert
Management accounting: Business: Business models, Expert

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1 Comments/Reflections

Bradley Channer Mar 2022

I enjoyed reading this article.

For me personally, it cemented for me the importance of communication and emotional intelligence in Finance Business Partnering.

I found it interesting reading about the reporting line, as I do see the benefits of it plugging straight into the CFO. I have seen first-hand the issues of FBP plugging into a VP or Director of Finance. The problem then is that the information needed for the CFO is not given. I have seen this not work well as it looks like the FBP hasn't done their job, when really it was the VP who didn't by not passing it on. Not having a FBP plug into a CFO makes a CFO look weak and ill informed. These things can never end well.

Salary expectations of a FBP I thought would be an interesting thing to research. It is missing in this article, and with such high demand for good FBP and with the general trend of non London based SME/BlueChips, they underpay FBP's regionally and then struggle to find talent. It would be interesting to investiage these issues in the system and how regional companies in the UK solve these problems.

Business

Fact or fiction? The independent business partner: Global

1 Comments/Reflections

Bradley Channer Mar 2022

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