Necessitating Clear Understanding Of The Business Model

The Future Of Forecasting

The CFO acts as a co-pilot to the business and helps CEO to take business to the next level. He undertakes multiple roles as part of his profile. Of the many varied roles that he plays in the company, being a master in balancing two opposing forces is very important. They are compliance and controllership and secondly should be a risk taker.

For a CFO to be an effective business partner and to help drive better business results, he needs to undertake a few steps to kick start the journey.

Getting his house in order

The finance head would be able to add value to the business only if his house is in order.
You cannot have a scenario where the CFO is trying to add value to the business whereas the basics of finance function at his own backyard are not functioning-like accounting, audit, vendor/ employee payments. These are some basics which he needs to establish so that people can start relying on the finance department.

"The finance head would need to build a culture where adherence to rules and regulations
needs to be established"

Build systems and Processes/ Compliance driven environment

One of the prime focus for the finance team is to ensure control across all areas of the business since a weak control would expose the organization to frauds and other weaknesses. The finance head would need to build a culture where adherence to rules and regulations needs to be established. This would ensure that the culture of the organization would be
driven based on the same.

Leverage a shared service model

Having established a process driven culture is a pre-requisite for a shared services model. This is required for the shared service set up to start improving on process quality and to reduce costs of operation with a centralized approach.  A
shared services model helps the CFO to establish a framework where most of the routine activities of the finance function are happening on an auto mode and only exceptions needs to be worked upon.

Understand business model

To be able to add value to the business, it is important for the finance head to understand the business model very clearly. He needs to be closer to the ground, understand the manufacturing/ operations set up, understand customer needs and see how the organization is geared up for transitioning to the next level. He needs to understand if the current business model is scalable and sustainable.

Alignment with Leadership

Driving business results is only possible when the finance head has a good and effective working relationship with the top leadership. It requires maturity from the leader as well as organizational support and culture for this to happen.

Thus, we can see that finance is in a sound position to take on roles to drive business and to help business grow. It requires some basic steps and some pre-requisites.