The FP&A Trends Webinar: Mastering Analytical Transformation with FP&A Trends Maturity Model
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The FP&A Trends Webinar: Mastering Analytical Transformation with FP&A Trends Maturity Model
Click here to view details and register
By Carl Stiller, Senior Business Controller Finance Transformation (Interim) at Transdev Sverige AB
I love to work with FP&A and change management. After working 14 years in various FP&A positions, this is my game. One thing to start with, though, is if this is your pick of a career, make sure to; eat well, sleep well, exercise as much as possible and meditate frequently.
Below activities, which took place for ten months during one of my assignments, include several recommendations for anyone about to set up a brand-new FP&A department in a company in transition.
When I took on this assignment as interim Head of Group FP&A Manager, I had three main objectives:
This article explores these objectives – at the same as implementing a new ERP system, re-making the budgeting process, hiring new staff, re-organising the company with a new portfolio.
The team in the 70 M$ company, let us call it Company Ltd. for further mentioning, consisted of 1 permanent employee who’d been with the company for seven years, three consultants of which one was a hire-purchase and one new hire on a probation period. All members were quite experienced but lacked guidance and joint agenda. They also worked as financial controllers and not as FP&A professionals. The atmosphere in the team was perfect. From my experience, I know that the micro-culture in a group and atmosphere is vital and very much linked to success in a team that will go through a large transformation.
The first challenge was to lead the budget process one month into the assignment. The main issue was the new portfolio, but the organisation was mostly not fully acquainted with the BI system. The FP&A team solved this issue by quickly creating a BI manual with mandatory training.
There are several recommendations that could be followed when introducing changes to a budget process:
When evaluating the prior budgeting process, it is a good idea to make a poll. I would recommend using some of the below seven categories and speaking to all functions or departments:
After a couple of months, I was faced with a shortfall of staff. 2 members left, and one critical worker received an appealing offer from another firm. In a situation like this, there are a few things you can do:
After this chaotic period, I decided to start fresh with the new team and hold a kick-off. Some good topics for discussion with your team could be found in the “Team Building” section on FP&A Trends. The main objective of our conference was to identify the very essence of the team, establish the vision and mission as well as for deciding the focus areas of work. I decided on having the following education for the team:
All members of the team had to contribute, and the meeting agenda included:
During the three day conference, we nailed down our five focus areas as well as a before and after scenario. We invited accounting to tell us more about their processes and calendar and had a handshake with them on where to draw the line between their area of work and ours.
We also defined which stage of the FP&A Analytics, the FP&A Business Partnering and the Rolling Forecast Maturity Model we were as an FP&A team. We ended up having an action plan with several projects making us step up significantly on the maturity stages within one year.
I also started to measure the teams time spent in our focus areas to make sure we progressed. I think that this conference is when we started moving the team from being financial controllers to FP&A professionals.
Six months into the assignment, the Company Ltd. management team decided to re-organise the business areas to adapt to the company’s future portfolio. With a new ERP system in place and an ongoing budgeting process, it was unclear how the re-organisation would impact our time.
The FP&A team was asked to handle this re-organisation, and I handed over the project lead to our most senior member, who set up a time plan with activities, responsibilities, sign-offs and a realistic deadline on when to go live with the new structure. I redistributed other less essential projects for the senior member who now could focus entirely on the re-organisation. We got up to full speed on the project, and two months later, it was completed.
The below recommendations are based on our experience:
Since the team had gone through quite a heavy workload during all of my assignments, it is natural that the motivation varied. I focused on five things to keep my team motivated:
In this assignment, I used transformative leadership, which is possibly the most effective leadership model. Bernard M. Bass developed the original theory and defined four main components; Idealised Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation and Individual Consideration. The focus in this model is also to value creativity and independence in the team, showing a genuine interest in the employees, what they want to achieve and where they are heading in their careers.
One thing I will always remember is the advice my father gave me before my first management position, and that is that an employee simply wants to be seen by his manager.
Looking back at the ten-month assignment, I can conclude that I accomplished the most important thing; create a solid FP&A team with a clear objective. We also successfully managed to adjust the focus areas for the members. Maintaining the focus on my main objectives, despite large organisational transformations, and keeping the process continuously ongoing was the solution. Below you will find my summarised advice if you sign up for a similar role:
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