The Finance Business Partner - Video Course - Corporates
The essential skills and mindset to move your team fro Calculators to Coaches
Online video development programme
Transform your team with our video on-demand finance business partner development programme
Are you ready for the finance revolution?
The future of finance is robots, a small number of exception fixers, and commercially-focussed influencers.
Finance is changing fast
Over the next 5 -15 years automation will change finance, freeing up time for us to be better business partners and leaders.
Month end no longer exists as we know it, as transactions are live time. Forecasts are automated, continuous, rolling, as far out as you want. And with a rolling forecast the annual budget process is largely eliminated.
The future of finance is robots, a small number of exception ‘fixers’, and a small number of dedicated commercially-focussed people with financial expertise.
These pure business partners will be in demand and highly paid. Some will be very, very highly paid.
We call then Super Business Partners.
Prepare your team for the finance revolution by moving from Calculator to Coach and developing the 16 behaviours of World Class finance business partners.
The future of finance is automation and a small number of relationship-building influencers.
What is finance business partnering?
Building relationships, turning data into insights, and bringing numbers to life
FBP is about 3 things:
1 Building relationships
Influence starts with relationships. You can’t influence anyone if they don’t trust you. Accountants focus on systems, data & processes. Partners invest time in relationships.
2 Turning data into insights
Accountants deal in the data that tells us what has happened. Commercially-focussed finance partners focus on insight, by asking & answering the question so what?
3 Bringing numbers to life
Probably the worst way to communicate numbers is to use a table of numbers. Business partners bring their data to life by telling the story behind the numbers, and communicating simple, clear messages.
If you do those 3 things you'll influence decisions.
And that's the point of being a finance business partner - to influence commercial and operational decisons.
The myths of FBP
Conventional wisdom is to challenge the business, and make recommendations.
The myths of FBP
Here are the 3 biggest finance business partner myths that hold back our relationships and influence:
1 Be a critical friend
The easiest way to create resistance and damage your relationship is to criticise someone. Your chances of influencing them have just crashed.
2. Challenge the business
The best way to make a sales, marketing, or operations person defensive is to challenge their ideas. Instead we want to coach & sell the benefits of doing things differently.
3 Make recommendations
Recommendations also create resistance - especially recommendations from finance to non-finance. Better to explore options and scenarios.
We have all been senior finance leaders, where we subscribed to the conventional wisdom.
Then we moved outside of finance, had finance partnering us, and realised that this advice and thinking is not helpful.
The 16 behaviours of World class
The essential mindsets and behaviours that will move your team from Calculators to Coaches
The 16 behaviours of World class FBPs
The best FBPs have the 4 essential skills:
1. Build relationships
2. Turn data in insights
3. Bring numbers to life
4. Influence, sell & negotiate
And there are 4 maturity levels:
1. the CALCULATOR
2. the DASHBOARD
3. the COACH
4. the LEADER
Are you dealing in data or insight?
Data answers the question what. Information answers the question why. And insight answers the question so what.
How far up insight mountain are your team?
The 16 behaviours can be simplified into just 1 model - Insight Mountain.
Data answers the question what?
Information answers the question why?
And insight answers the questions: so what, what next, how could we improve?
Finance are great at telling people what happened and surface whys.
And poor at giving people commercial drivers and helping to answer the so what.
And that's the fundamental difference between an accountant who tells people that sales are 4% below budget due to customer X.
And a finance business partner who says, hey: here are 3 things we could think about to grow sales and margin.
We work with finance teams to move them from data to genuine commercial insight that influences decisions.
Online video development programme
Learn from home or work on your terms with our on-demand video lessons
Online development
Transform your team on your terms with our on-demand video development programme for finance business partners.
Stary with a capability survey to measure your team against our 16 behaviours of World Class finance business partners.
Take 7 video courses, including case studies, exercises, extended reading, and tasking.
In total there are over 10 hours of video content, plus another 10 hours of exercises and guided tasking.
Add optional Skype 1:1 coaching, face-to-face workshops anywhere in the World, and Insights Discovery psychological profiling.
And the course qualifies for CPD for ICAEW, ACCA, CIMA and more.
After the online course your people will:
Know what World class finance business partnering looks like
Know their personal development gaps and have a clear plan and tools to close them
Be able to turn data into genuine insight using a simple 3 step model
Be able to transform a table of numbers into an engaging dashboard in just 10 minutes
Be able to build rapport quickly with anyone, even difficult people
Feel confident presenting and communicating clear messages
Feel confident challenging elegantly & negotiating for win-win outcomes
Know how to sell their ideas and influence people
Video course modules
There are 7 courses in total in the online development programme:
Course 1 – What is FBP?
Learn what great looks like and create your personalised development plan
Course 2 – Bring numbers to life
Learn how to make your finance reports interesting, engaging, and fun!
Course 3 – Turn data to insight
Learn how to translate data (what) into information (why) and insights (so what)
Course 4 – Relationships
Learn how to build fast-track rapport, challenge elegantly, and deal with any conflict
Course 5 – Secrets of influence
Apply the secrets of influence from sales and marketing to the finance World
Course 6 – Tell stories with data
Learn 3 storyline structures, the top 10 finance charts, and the 5 charts not to use
Course 7 – Present with confidence
Learn how to engage your audience, and feel confident presenting
Investment options
Full online development programme £599/person:
Assessment against our 16 behaviours with individual and team reports
All 7 video courses - over 20 hours of video content, case-studies, and exercises
Add these optional extras:
Insights Discovery profiling - £199 per person
Skype 1:1 coaching - £199/person/session
Face-to-face tailored workshops anywhere in the World from £299/person/day
Once we understand your needs and number of people we'll provide a personalised quote.
Why listen to us?
We've been senior finance leaders, but our methodology comes directly from our experience in sales and marketing.
I’m Andy Shambrook. I used to be a finance business partner, struggling to build relationships and influence alongside reporting, budgeting, and forecasting.
When I became finance director I wanted to make time for genuine business partnering. So I put all reporting, budgeting and forecasting into a FP&A team. And created a few genuine, dedicated FBP roles.
Separating FP&A activities from FBP activities transforms finance's influence
Then I became a sales director. and saw a whole new perspective on finance business partnering.
In sales I learned to communicate clear messages, sell my ideas, and negotiate for win-win outcomes. I realised that these are the missing ingredients for finance influence.
In 2014 I founded The Finance Business Partner, and over the last 5 years I've worked with over 5,000 finance people and over 100 companies across the World in every sector.
All my partners are finance leaders with experience outside of finance, who train and consult from direct experience, not text books.
andy@thefinancebusinesspartner.com
Andy Shambrook FCA, Founder and Managing Partner
Iain Dewson
Partner, Global
Hi, I’m Iain Dewson. I’m a FCA and I’ve held senior finance roles across retail, investment banking, advertising, marketing services and insurance.
Most recently I was Head of Finance Academy at TUI (in the group HR L&D function) leading global finance learning for 3,500 people in 40 countries.
In 2019 I joined The Finance Business Partner, specialising in helping teams build better relationships, bring numbers to life and influence decisions.
iain@thefinancebusinesspartner.com
Iain Dewson, FCA, Partner
Andrew Jepson
Partner, Asia Pacific
Hi, I’m Andrew Jepson. I’m a CPA based out of Sydney, running the Asia Pacific region. I’ve held senior commercial finance roles, and also experienced life outside of finance as a general manager.
I wrote the book 'Compliance to Commercial: The QUIET Approach To Finance Business Partnering', and I run Australia's longest running public business partner workshops.
Having worked both in and out of finance, I can bring both perspectives to the table.
Andrew.jepson@thefinancebusinesspartner.com
Andrew Jepson, CA, Partner, Asia Pacific
Some of our clients
Over the last 5 years we've worked with over 5,000 finance business partners across over 100 companies all over the World.
You are more than welcome to contact any of our clients to get a first hand view of how we helped them.
