This report – drafted in partnership with ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) – suggests ways the finance function can improve current approaches to business partnering. It proposes nine pragmatic actions to improve partnering practices anchored in three core component parts: creating the mandate, fixing the information, and deploying the talent.

“Financial insight: challenges and opportunities” draws data from a global survey in 2014, as well as from finance leader roundtable discussions in New York, London, Toronto, Vancouver, Singapore, and Hong Kong; an accountants for business roundtable discussion in London; and qualitative interviews with finance leaders. The results suggest that the finance function can improve current approaches to business partnering by:

• Creating a sustainable mandate for finance business partnering practices to flourish
• Fixing and reworking the quality of data insights provided to the enterprise
• Deploying finance talent with the right mindset to meet the challenges.
  

Key Insights

• The goal for the finance organization is to become a key value-added participant in the analysis and decision-making processes of the enterprise.
• Finance organizations must understand, and address, the common obstacles that present challenges to successful finance decision-support activities.
• The finance organization must work with its business partners to convince them of its ability to provide the right insights to realize a much more integrated relationship.