Importance Of Focusing On Strategic Planning

Maximizing Long-Term Corporate Growth And Shareholder Value

A collaborative and successful business partnering role of the new-era CFO is much sought after, but rarely achieved. The heart of business partnering rests in understanding the business
dynamics, its potential and challenges, the financial impact of each of its components, and finally the effective allocation of scarce resources to achieve the overall business goals.

As companies seek growth in an intensely competitive business environment, the role of CFOs is becoming “transformational”. They are seen to be a key contributor to business strategy and
their role spans from the traditional finance related tactical areas to the new enterprise-wide strategic planning and direction setting.

To understand this role in a more simplistic way, we can mention the essence of being a business partner is to:
• Work with, and not in cross-purpose, with business and unit leaders to drive improved performance
• Facilitate transparency of financial performance across the organization and share the analytic inputs with business teams
• Review and ensure that all business decisions are grounded in sound financial analysis
• Ensure that business also understands financial challenges, and then there is a joint accountability and ownership from the CFO and the business for decisions taken.
• Provide analysis and insight to senior leadership to prioritize the allocation of scarce resources to areas where disproportionately high value can be generated
• Last but not the least, continuously scan the external and internal environment for mapping opportunities, spotting risks, assessing the future and helping the leadership in steering the
organization towards a strategic goal

Financial Transformations

Finance has indeed been undergoing a series of important transformations, typically beginning with building and expanding presence and capabilities that enable greater reach and reporting within the enterprise.

"Provide analysis and insight to senior leadership to prioritize the allocation of scarce resources"

Over time, the uses of these systems grew beyond their original intent and scope. The range of interaction with other systems also increased, with the result that the original system design
fell short of the expanded, increased demands and expectations from the business and consequently from Finance. The more complexity and costs increase, greater the effectiveness gaps, especially on the technology front to grow.

SaaS and Cloud Computing is what came to our rescue. Acquisition costs, including implementation, for SaaS can be as much as 75 percent less than for traditional competitive business software applications - even less when comparing SaaS suites against multiple, point-solution software applications.

For Finance, this means opportunities to integrate data and operations across processes and silos - and thus to improve their abilities to improve service levels, lower costs, and transform to
a more strategic role within the business.