PARTNER
Business Partnering (leading) your stakeholders to ensure your insights are acted on so that you deliver your business goals. A Business Partner is not a finance (or insight) professional that produces insight and gives it to someone to act on. The best Business Partners see themselves as Business Leaders who have the confidence and motivation to bring their insight to life in a way that drives the right actions in their organisations.
There are 3 pillars to effective Business Partnering
​
RELATIONSHIPS
INSIGHTS
ACTION
Key learnings below >>>
Business Partners are Business leaders, we just have a finance tool kit
Lead the business with your insight
Your NOT there to carry the baggage
Remember for this to work - all finance departments must work together
Relationships =
Trust =
Action
What type of relationship do you have with your stakeholders?
Map & rate your relationships
When did you last have a coffee with your stakeholder and ask "How are you doing?"
Are you generating Level 3 insights?
Speak their language
If you want your stakeholder to understand you better, then speak their language - pitch it in a way that they will understand e.g. if they like graphs - use graphs, if they like numbers - use numbers. If you don't know what they like - ASK THEM
Bring your numbers to life
We had 94% product availability in shops last week
OR
We disappointed 1,000 loyal customers last week that are not likely to shop with us again
Which one makes you compelled to act?
Be emotional
Rational logic (numbers and facts) is not always enough to get your stakeholders to act on your insights. You need to appeal to their emotional senses if you are going to get them to act on your insights.
