金融functions today are being encouraged to embrace business partnering in order to support the organisation in its need to become more competitive, innovative, agile and forward-looking. The finance team is in a unique position to support these ambitions because it looks right across the business.
From my experience in business partnering at a number of FTSE 100 companies, I see three critical areas where the finance function can have a positive impact, particularly in today’s disruptive business environment.

运营成本分析

Today’s accounting software can be set up in order to provide management with an overview of activity and process costs across the company in a format they understand, helping them make faster and better business decisions.

例如，想象一下，如果他们有关于活动和流程有关的成本的信息，包括回答客户电话的成本，提高发票，获取或保留客户，或向客户提供产品或服务。与管理层分享这些信息是证明财务团队可以与他们说出相同语言并提供有价值的成本透明度的好方法。

This information becomes even more powerful if you can explain how changes in the underlying volumes in the business impact the cost base. By understanding the volumes that drive the business, you can calculate the unit rate of particular activities. For example, let’s say the cost of answering a customer phone call is £3.60. This information can be used to improve management decision-making for such areas as outsourced telemarketing campaigns or overflow call-centre facilities to maintain the same level of customer service.

In addition to helping with cost transparency and capacity planning, it can support benchmarking activities, sales channel analysis, and even product profitability and pricing decisions.

在我的经验中，活动成本计算模型可以提供2％的成本减少，而无需减少资源。

平衡的记分卡
To drive the business forward in a balanced and measured way, using Robert Kaplan and David Norton’s balanced scorecard approach is still a great way to achieve positive results. Reporting on key performance indicators (KPIs) can keep the focus on the time taken to complete key processes and on improvements in quality. These metrics put the focus on customer, employee, operational and financial measures.

关注的关键领域之一是简化管理报告和减少全业务报告的指标数量。企业必须仅举报真理的一个版本，并在我的意见中集中生产管理信息，以减少重复努力。

平衡的记分卡提供结构和简单性，在我的经验中可以产生远远超过预期的结果。

In one particular project I was involved in, balanced scorecards provided an increase in sales as well as a 1.7% reduction in costs without the need to reduce resources. This initiative also achieved increased levels of customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.

六个西格玛
Over the last few years, methodologies that improve underlying business processes have become increasingly popular. Finance teams in particular have been strong advocates of Six Sigma – a fact-based methodology that values defect prevention over defect detection. It drives customer satisfaction up and improves bottom-line results by reducing inefficiency.

At the core of Six Sigma is the importance of focusing on customer needs and measuring the metrics that support the customer experience. Measuring processes to identify any weaknesses and then implementing change can significantly enhance business performance in a short period of time. You can then measure the process to quantify the level of improvement achieved. The key here is the measurement. This will always ensure you have a control point, and can determine and communicate the absolute level of improvement.

金融business partners should embrace the many opportunities to implement one or all of the above methods. Each of them can improve the contribution of the finance team within a company and demonstrate added value to the business’ bottom line.

奈杰尔在第1天说AICPA和CIMA Finance Transformation Conference 2018. His session is entitled, 'CFOs/Finance must spend more time looking at business transformation. Discuss.' You can find out more about this session on the会议网站.

奈杰尔可以与他联系LinkedIn profile.