Collaboration builds a better view of the future

In FSN’s recent survey of finance leaders, 78% of respondents said that non-financial data is the best route to improved planning, budgeting and forecasting. However, the report also makes clear that finance teams are failing to secure this data through a lack of relationships with the rest of the business and the resulting inability to identify and qualify the right sources.

We’ve explored this issue in more depth in a new discussion paper available on future-of-finance.com. Yet, this is not a new issue for me. It’s something I have witnessed in most of the Offices of Finance I’ve worked with over the last 17 years and it must change.

Finance has too often isolated itself from partners across the business, sitting on the other side of combative budgeting cycles and being the naysayer, rather than the driver of change. While other teams have invested in technology to better connect with the market and the future, finance has been left behind. And finance has always under-invested in soft skills, like communication.

The future-ready finance function is one that addresses these issues, developing skills and tools and using them to create a more collaborative operation that drives improvement in the business. FSN’s report and our own research show that some finance leaders are making moves in this direction. But it’s still too few – as an industry we need to accelerate the pace of change, starting with how we teach the most junior members of the community about what it means to work in finance.

Find out more about what a collaborative finance function looks like, and why it is critical, when you download the latest paper.