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Copyright 2019 FSN Publishing Limited. All rights reserved The Future of Business Partnering Global Survey 2019 Insights from the FSN Modern Finance Forum on LinkedIn BP 22Ralf Grtner Senior Vice President having enough insight into performance on-hand so that when a new proposal is on the table, you can see its impacts from all angles. On the other hand, business partnering refers to your ability to act as a bridge between decision makers and the rest of the organization, including lines of business, departments, and operations. One part advisor, another part connector, the office of finance now finds themselves in a position where theyre expected to influence corporate strategy and departmental decision making, all while keeping up with their day-to-day financial management responsibilities. To become a business partner, Finance must first get a handle on all corporate data. Financial results, customer information, market trends, sales, costs, deep underlying trends all must be mapped and available for their exploration. The clincher: finance must produce analysis that can guide direction without a second of delay. In other words, finance must attain complete data mastery. This task demands far more than the technology most finance offices currently use. You cant explore granular data according to any driver in a spreadsheet. No matter how fast one person can manually collect and project data, youll always see the long-term financial effects of in-the-moment operational decisions too late. To put it bluntly, without software to automate processes and centralize wide-spread corporate data, finance will never fully evolve into agent of change they could be. To fulfill their potential, the office of finance must undergo a digital transformation, modernizing processes and centralizing data in a single trusted source. Those who invest in the right technology will enjoy the many fruits of finances new role as a business partner. 3Ralf Grtner Senior Vice President Its one of process efficiency. CCH Tagetik gives finance the tools to do both. Learn more about how CFOs can take back time using CCH Tagetik. Watch this interview with Marco Pierallini, our Executive VP of Product. One solution is to use 360 degree appraisals, drawing in a wider gamut of feedback including business partners and internal customers to ascertain the effectiveness of the process. Finance business partnering can also be quantified if there are business model changes, like the move from product sales to services, which require a generous underpinning of financial input to be carried out effectively. Business partnering offers companies a way to inexpensively pool all their best resources to generate ideas, spark innovation and positively add value to the business. First CFOs need to recognize the importance of business partnering, widen their idea of how it can add value, and then actually set aside the enough time to become agents of change and growth. BP 2 The Next Generation of Business Partner 16CCH Tagetik has benefited our CFO because we can rely on the data and know there are controls around the numbers were reporting. With that confidence, were more efficient and able to deliver our numbers quicker.” Larry Brislawn, Senior Financial Manager, Aegon CASE STUDY 1: Aegon Asset Management Global investment management firm, Aegon Asset Management struggled with disparate financial systems and ineffective controls. Planning was separated from actuals on legacy systems. Data was spread across Microsoft Access and Excel. Allocations were attempted in Access, but without access to granular data, they couldnt produce the product pricing that product development needed. These fragmented processes made it very difficult to report information accurately. Aegon chose CCH Tagetik because it was the only unified platform that would house all financial and operational data in one location, with the granularity that they required, and the flexibility to change along with their business. Now, Aegon uses CCH Tagetik for consolidation, budgeting, planning, and reporting. Using driver-based planning and cascading allocations on a granular data-model, they calculate detailed product pricing and product costing 75% faster. Using CCH Tagetik, Aegon: Streamlined data gathering. From 23 feeds to one automated feed, the company has eliminated manual reconciliation tasks. Created consistency across the business. Today, Aegon runs all financial processes (consolidation, budgeting and planning, costing) and analytics on one unified platform. Increased efficiency. Aegon now uses driver-based calculations for product pricing and costing at granular level. Theyve reduced the effort to produce one cost allocation by 75%. Automated reporting. Using built-in automation and reporting capabilities, Aegon adheres to SOX requirements, segregates duties, and meets internal allocation and reporting needs with ease. Improved confidence. With a single source of data and improved controls, the CFO and CEO have confidence in the results. By taking back time and unifying their processes, Aegon has successfully evolved to become a next-generation business partner to their organization. Watch the whole story here. BP 2 the next generation of Business Partner 1718 Chapter 2 Data to Support Business Partnering . technology to support data management 18Data unlocks business partnering Data is the most valuable organizational currency in todays competitive business environment. Most companies are still in the process of working out the best method to collect, collate and use the tsunami of data available to them in order to generate insight. Some organizations are just at the start of their data journey, others are more advanced, and our research confirms that their data profile will make a significant difference to how well their business partnering works. The survey asked how well respondents data supported the role of business partnering, and the responses showed that 18% were data overloaded. This meant business partners have too many conflicting data sources and poor data governance, leaving them with little actual usable data to support the partnering process. 26% were data constrained, meaning they cannot get hold of the data they need to drive insight and decision making. And a further 34% were technology constrained, muddling through without the tech savvy resources or tools to fully exploit the data they already have. These senior finance executives may know the data is there, sitting in an ERP or CRM system, but cant exploit it because they lack the right technology tools. The final 22% have achieved data mastery, where they actively manage their data as a corporate asset, and have the tools and resources to exploit it in order to give their company a competitive edge. This means 78% overall are hampered by data constraints and are failing to use data effectively to get the best out of their business partnering. While the good intentions are there, it is a weak partnership because there is little of substance to work with. Data to Support Business Partnering 19 78% of organizations are hampered by data constraints. “We have too many data sources and data governance is poor.” 18% DATA OVERLOAD “We cannot get hold of the data we need to drive insight and decision making.” 26% DATA CONSTRAINED “We do not have the tech-savvy resources or tools to fully exploit data we have.” 34% TECHNOLOGY CONSTRAINED “Data is actively managed as a corporate asset and we have the tools and resources to provide competitive edge and insight.” 22% DATA MASTERSThe diagram above is the Business Partnering Maturity Model as it relates to data. It illustrates that there is a huge gap in performance between how effective data masters and data laggards are at business partnering. The percentage of business partners falling into each category of data management (data overloaded, data constrained etc) has been plotted together with how well these finance functions feel that business partnering is regarded by the operational units as well as their perceived influence on change. The analysis reveals that “Data masters” are in a league of their own. They are significantly more likely to be well regarded by the operations and are more likely to act as change agents in their business partnering role. We know from FSNs 2018 Innovation in Financial Reporting survey that data masters, who similarly made up around one fifth of senior finance executives surveyed, are also more innovative. That research showed they were more likely to have worked on innovative projects in the last three years, and were less likely to be troubled by obstacles to reporting and innovation. Data masters also have a more sophisticated approach to business partnering. Theyre more likely to be change agents, are more often seen as a trusted advisor and theyre more involved in decision making. Interestingly, two-thirds of data masters have a formal or agreed way to measure the success of business partnering, compared to less than 41% of data constrained CFOs, and 36% of technology constrained and data overloaded finance executives. Theyre also more inclined to perform 360 degree appraisals with their internal customers to assess the success of their business partnering. This means they can monitor and measure their success, which allows them to adapt and improve their processes. Data to Support Business Partnering 20 The Big Divide: % Business Partnering Very Well Regarded by the Operations % That consider themselves to be a Change Agent21 The remainder, i.e. those that have not mastered their data, are clustered around a similar position on the Business Partnering Maturity Model, i.e. there is little to separate them around how well they are regarded by operational business units or whether they are in a position to influence change. The key message from this survey is that data masters are the stars of the modern finance function, and it is a sentiment echoed through many of FSNs surveys over the last few years. The Innovation in Financial Reporting survey also found that data masters outperformed their less able competitors in three key performance measures that are indicative of financial health and efficiency. They close their books faster, reforecast quicker and generate more accurate forecasts, and crucially they have the time to add value to the organization. People, processes and technology So, if data is the key to driving business partnerships, where do the people, processes and technology come in? Business partnering doesnt necessarily come naturally to everyone. Where there is no experience of it in previous positions, or if the culture is normally quite insular, sometimes CFOs and senior finance executives need focused guidance. But according to the survey, 77% of organizations expect employees to pick up business partnering on the job. And only just over half offer specialized training courses to support them. Each company and department or function will be different, but businesses need to support their partnerships, either with formal structures or at the very least with guidance from experienced executives to maximize the outcome. Meanwhile processes can be a hindrance to business partnering in organizations where there is a lack of standardization and automation. The survey found that 71% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that a lack of automation hinders the process of business partnering. This was followed closely by a lack of standardization, and a lack of unification, or integration in corporate systems. Surprisingly the constraints of too many or too complex spreadsheets only hindered 61% of CFOs, the lowest of all obstacles but still a substantial stumbling block to effective partnerships. The hindrances reflect the need for better technology to manage the data that will unlock real inter-departmental insight, and 83% of CFOs said that better software to support data analytics is their most pressing need when supporting effective business partnerships. Meanwhile 81% are looking to future technology to assist in data visualization to make improvements to their business partnering. 81% of CFOs are looking to future technology to assist in data visualization to make improvements to their business partnering Data to Support Business PartneringToo many sources, scattered data, a lack of tools; These are the roadblocks preventing your finance team from becoming an agent of change. If your task is to wrangle vast volumes of data from a myriad of sources and then tame that data into information, youll forever be bucked by that processs manual nature. The path to data mastery is paved with technology and digital transformation. The CCH Tagetik Analytic Information Hub is the driving force behind our next generation financial management solution. Its a powerful data engine that collects, validates, and transforms vast amounts of granular financial and operational data in a flash, and then serves information into reports ready for analysis. Using it combination with our suite of advanced modeling capabilities, finance can quickly calculate detailed profitability, perform in-depth operational planning, and monitor KPIs. The Analytic Information Hub provides a foundation for artificial intelligence and machine learning so when maintaining data mastery means going a step further, youll keep stride. Uncover hidden value, generate insights, and become an agent of change in your organization with CCH Tagetik. This echoes the findings of FSNs The Future of Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting survey which identified users of cutting edge visualization tools as the most effective forecasters. Being able to visually demonstrate financial data and ideas in an engaging and accessible way is particularly important in business partnering, when the counterparty doesnt work in finance and may have only rudimentary knowledge of complex financial concepts. Data is a clear differentiator. Business partners who can access, analyze and explain organizational data are more likely to generate real insight, engage their business partners, and become a positive agent of change and growth. 81% of CFOs are looking to future technology to assist in data visualization to make improvements to their business partnering Data to Support Business Partnering 22“I wanted a solution that was going to enable us to have a strategic reporting future. So we chose CCH Tagetiks integrated platform where we could create a one-stop data shop. CCH Tagetik col- lects the data once and populates all our various reports. It ensures the integrity of data and enables our businesses to reconcile sources simply.” Kate Forbes, Head of Financial Projects, BUPA CASE STUDY 2: BUPA Disparate systems, multiple vendors, manual data collection, and a mountain of spreadsheets; such was the state of BUPAs financial processes. To say the global healthcare insurer lacked control and govern
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