The fact is...

...only 11% of finance functions regard themselves as true business partners*.

The finance function has come to a crossroads. In today’s tough economic climate, CFOs are being called upon to provide more advice to the business, while enhancing the cost-effectiveness of performance analysis, reporting and transactional management.

As the economic storm subsides, some finance professionals may prefer to step back into the background, however, many may wish to take advantage of their current prominence to strengthen their long-term standing and influence and consolidate their position as partners to the business.

However, our benchmark results raise concerns about whether many CFOs are equipped to achieve this goal. The fact is only 11% of finance functions regard themselves as true business partners.

Their ability to provide insightful business intelligence is called into question as less than 15% claim to read more than three quarters of their management information. In addition, most finance functions still spend the bulk of their energies on data gathering rather than analysis, with median companies spending only around 45% of their time on analysis versus nearly two thirds within top performing firms.

Achieving this much talked about ambition of business partnership may therefore still appear some way off. Although with the new found emphasis on finance, now does seem the ideal time for CFOs to give this issue serious thought.

Things to consider

Our findings highlight four key hurdles CFOs need to consider to leverage the full value of their finance functions:

• Ensuring finance functions have the expertise, credibility and commercial focus to evaluate business options and inform strategic decision-making
• Ensuring management information is clear and forward-looking enough to identify opportunities
• Standardising processes and harnessing technology to effectively match capacity and demand, while freeing resources for value-added tasks
• Developing an agile approach capable of accommodating business expansion and/or divestment

To find out more about how to make business partnering work, read our publication ‘Adding up or adding value?'.

* Derived from our finance benchmark database of 81 FTSE 200 audit and non-audit clients, updated annually and growing rapidly.