Finance Business Partner Role
Are you ready to take your finance career to a whole new level? Learn about the importance of the finance business partner role and position yourself as a strategic asset within your organisation.
At The Finance Business Partner, we understand the continuously changing demands facing finance professionals into today’s business environment. The finance business partner role is emerging as a crucial driver of organisational success, combining financial expertise with strategic insights to influence decision-makers and encourage growth.
What is a Finance Business Partner?
A finance business partner is a senior accountant who works closely with stakeholders and other top decision-makers in an organisation. They work with a business to help it make crucial decisions, develop key strategies, and more.
These are the individuals who oversee a company’s financial wellbeing. The financial business partner helps their organisation become aware of potential financial and commercial risks that could have a negative impact on their business. Finance business partners identify these risks and reduce or eliminate them.
As a finance business partner, it’s necessary to have analytical skills and excellent communication. This individual is a part of the leadership team in a business that keeps other leaders informed, offers advice, and regularly updates them on the company’s financial position.
What We Offer
What Does a Finance Business Partner Do?
A finance business partner works with different departments within an organisation. They work to understand and communicate an in-depth picture of the company’s finances. They keep crucial decision-makers informed and help the business achieve its objectives.
Here’s a list of the finance business partner’s major responsibilities:
Analysing financial reports
Attracting
investments
Building
partnerships
Delivering insights into business strategies
Implementing commercial goals
Meeting financial targets
Business performance monitoring
Updating
shareholders
Driving operational
change
Identifying business
risks
Improving financial
reporting
The finance business partner may work in the business or remotely, but their days are filled with these responsibilities.
What Skills Does a Finance Business Partner Need?
To be successful, the finance business partner must have a diverse set of skills that go along with their financial expertise. Here are some skills that are crucial for a finance business partner:
1. Decision-making
The finance business partner is involved with major decisions that benefit the company. They become involved with new initiatives and offer support to major decision-makers. The finance business partner must have excellent decision-making skills in order to ensure the business reaches its goals.
2. Communication skills
Finance business partners also need to interpret raw data and communicate this plainly to business leaders who are non-finance people. Jargon needs to be avoided at all costs. In addition, the finance business partner presents their findings in an expressive, inspiring way. You could say that they are a “translator” of sorts between finances and operations. They tell a persuasive story to connect and convince.
3. Influencing skills
They also need the ability to influence and persuade decision-makers and stakeholders; it’s necessary to guide the decision-making process and get leaders to “buy in” to their ideas and guidance.
4. Analytical & problem-solving
Finance business partners also need strong analytical skills for conducting financial analysis, identifying patterns, and drawing valuable insights. It’s necessary to be proficient with financial analysis tools, data analysis techniques, and financial software. In addition, highly developed problem-solving skills are also required to address financial challenges, develop innovative solutions, and make data-driven recommendations.
5. Relationship-building
Building strong relationships with key decision-makers is essential. It’s necessary to effectively collaborate with colleagues, department heads, and more. Developing trust and credibility makes it easier to include decision-making and become a trusted advisor within the company.
6. Leadership & project management
A finance business partner also leads or participates in cross-departmental projects. For this reason, they need strong leadership skills, including the ability to manage and coordinate projects and teams, meet deadlines, and more. Project management skills also help them drive initiatives forward and deliver valuable results for their organisation.
7. Business understanding
To effectively partner with an organisation, a business finance partner needs a deep understanding of the company’s industry, market dynamics, and its key drivers of success. Developing industry knowledge, understanding of the competition, and staying updated on industry trends enables them to offer valuable financial insights and recommendations.
By developing these skills, a finance business partner can position themselves as an effective partner who provides value to the business through strategic financial insights, driving performance improvements and supporting top decision-makers.
What are the Benefits of Having a Finance Business Partner?
A successful finance business partner can help a business achieve its goals by increasing shareholder value and maximising return. With a business-wide perspective to financial security, organisations can also gain new insights from their finance business partners.
A finance business partner also challenges leadership regarding its strategies and effectiveness. They help identify whether the financial numbers support the current financial strategy of an organisation. If the strategy is not supported, the finance business partner works to identify areas that need focus and offer possible solutions to help the business reach its vision.
Finance business partners also use their insight and finance understanding to help the business management to make better decisions. They also offer support and guidance to enable the business to improve its performance.
Finance Business Partner Jobs
To become a finance business partner, it’s necessary to have an accounting qualification. This is a senior position that comes with a lot of responsibilities. These individuals often work with an existing finance team in a larger organisation. It’s also beneficial to have experience leading projects for a department or across the entire company.
This job title may also come in different variations, including:
- Commercial finance business partner
- Senior finance business partner
- Financial business partner
Berry Seriens
★★★★★
CFO SVP, CHEP North America
Andy is a great communicator and provides a broader perspective on how finance interacts with different stakeholders and how finance could interact differently with the many business partners. I highly recommend him and his team to develop our broad finance teams.
Steve Harris
★★★★★
CFO, Barts Charity
Andy worked with our finance business partner team and has transformed the way we approach the role. By emphasising the importance of relationship building and looking at things from the perspective of our stakeholders the team are now able to provide significantly better service.
Kane Laurence
★★★★★
FP&A Director, CMS Legal
I have worked with Andy and the team twice and have been very impressed with his ability to deliver relevant content in a way that is engaging from start to finish. Andy’s unique sales and finance background really brings something to the table and I would thoroughly recommend his expertise to develop any business partnering capability.
Wes Burrage-Jones
★★★★★
Group CFO, Metamorph
Andy has taken me & our team on a journey of self learning, enabling a transformation which has resulted in turning dull, low value information into insight and influence. The learning has opened our eyes to a different way of communication and we are excited to continue this journey and see what we can achieve – thanks Andy!
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