Finance Needs to Rethink Its Understanding of "The Business"
By Andy Burrows
It’s horribly dismissive, as well as being terribly cliché and old hat, to call us “bean counters” for working in the Finance department. Mere “number crunchers!”
Some go even further. One Marketing Director once tried to put us in our place by telling us that we in Finance were “just an overhead”. Apparently, Sales and Marketing brought in money, and everyone else, including Finance, just spent it. It seemed a source of some bitterness that he could work so hard bringing money in only to see it frittered away on our over-inflated salaries!
And so, why would anyone think to involve us in strategic discussion, let alone tell us about a new product before they launch it (thus avoiding the accounting mayhem we normally have to deal with!)?
And as a result, we’re made to feel like outsiders. We really want to be involved and valued, but instead feel shut out.
But, you see, sometimes we don’t help ourselves....
Business Performance Management for Finance Professionals
By Andy Burrows
You’re a Finance professional who wants to do their best for the business you work for.
You may want to rise to be a CFO one day.
If so, you must grasp business performance management.
Business performance management is a key element of the business acumen you need to be a business-focused Finance professional. And it’s something that is specifically the responsibility of the CFO and Finance.
If you want to be more than “just an accountant”; if you want to drive business performance, rather than just spectate or commentate on it, learn business performance management!
And that’s what I aim to introduce you to in this article.
Why is business performance management so important?
Business performance management is an essential discipline, because as I regularly say, “managing business performance better leads to better business performance... otherwise why bother managing it?”
Management is “maintaining control...
Business Acumen for Finance Professionals
By Andy Burrows
What is business acumen?
Business acumen is an extremely important topic for Finance professionals.
Everyone agrees that you need business acumen to be a good CFO. It’s also an essential ingredient for a Finance Business Partner. But, on top of that, we know that Finance as a whole is becoming more business-focused, so business acumen is becoming more fundamental to Finance professional development.
And there are a couple of reasons, at least, for the rising importance of business acumen for Finance professionals.
First, the business landscape is increasingly complex, changing rapidly, and becoming more global, because of the unstoppable drive of new digital and communications technology.
That means that the analytical part of decision-making now needs more than just a commercial CFO. The CFO needs a team they can delegate to, to get involved in helping business decisions.
It has also put non-Finance managers in the business under pressure. They are also being...
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