From Accountant to Business Partner
What does the modern approach to financial management entail? It’s a system-building endeavor where every process within a company, every business initiative, should contribute to achieving its strategic goals, both quantitatively and qualitatively. While financial management is often perceived as solely quantitative, focused on numbers, in reality it goes beyond that.
Modern financial management primarily revolves around setting and achieving strategic business goals, emphasizing a select few critical quantitative and qualitative objectives, and adapting plans flexibly to rapidly changing external factors and competitive landscapes. It delves much deeper into business processes compared to traditional «accounting» financial management.
The conventional financial department typically comprises accounting, finance and treasury. In modern companies, these departments are augmented by automation and financial system support, along with financial coordinators handling month-end closures with client-contractors, monitoring accounts receivable, and managing client credit limits. Moreover, financial directors have expanded responsibilities encompassing shareholder and investor relations, corporate governance (often incorporating the ESG agenda or «Environmental, Social, and Governance»), legal services, compliance control, risk management, and HR document flow.
A recent trend has emerged: service departments are supplying businesses with functional experts – internal business partners – who are incentivized by the company’s overall performance, possess a deep understanding of operations, and aid employees in commercial departments with issues related to the corresponding internal service (or external if outsourcing is involved), be it HR, logistics, finance, legal affairs, and more, tailored to the industry.
Distinguished from regular employees in service departments, business partners boast extensive experience and expertise in related functional or commercial fields. They possess profound insights into the production process and are relentlessly focused on achieving departmental and company objectives.
Typically, a financial business partner is a former financial controller or experienced financial analyst. Although accountants less frequently assume this role, it presents personal, professional, and career advancement opportunities, safeguarding against professional obsolescence. This aspect will be explored further on.