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Building a high-performing finance team

The finance team is one of the essential aspects supporting a business’s financial growth, strategy and performance. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is at the heart of this financial engine, tasked with supporting and enabling the business with critical information and insights to inform decisions that will impact short and long-term performance. 

A highly effective finance team drives the business’s strategy by providing management information and data to support the decisions underpinning business growth and financial success and ultimately setting a clear business direction. 

However, building and running an effective finance team takes a lot of time and concerted effort. In this article, we will discuss the challenges facing today's finance teams and the key people, processes, and platforms needed to build a high-performing and effective finance team. 

6 minutes

Posted 09/09/2022

Introduction

Today’s CFO and finance team face many challenges in a fast-paced, multi-connected, data-driven world economy. 

CFOs must build a framework to drive profit and growth and guard their businesses against risk. The growing volumes of fast-changing data across disparate systems have become increasingly challenging to manage. 

Read our ‘New CFO Checklist’ for tips on being a more strategic CFO. 

Keeping up to speed with technology trends and changes in the finance industry is almost a full-time job alone, and 66% of finance leaders believe the digital competency gap is only getting wider (Gartner). As technology changes and evolves, it is the role of CFOs and their teams to keep pace with innovation and best practice to ensure they are setting their business partners up for success.  

Three common challenges facing a finance department 

Lack of automation 

Without proper systems and processes, the CFO and their finance team are caught up in day-to-day administrative tasks, including manual data entry, manipulating data or re-keying information into their accounting software.

This can lead to frustration in the finance team and manual errors. Instead of using the data for management information, significant time is spent ensuring the data is simply accurate – by which point the data is probably out-of-date. 

Read more about the benefits of automating your financial management software with our latest eBook.

Lack of data collaboration 

For many organisations, data remains in silos, either on disparate systems or in multiple spreadsheets owned by different people.

When information isn’t stored in either a single, central location or seamlessly connected – as well as being easy to access and understand – it makes it impossible to get a single version of the truth, let alone lead the business forward. Rarely is the bigger picture found in isolation. 

Data volume and complexity  

In many cases, the sheer volume and complexity of the business's data can be a barrier to unlocking its value and turning it into useful management information.

Successful CFOs recognise that technology can be a game-changer for the finance team and wider business. Using technology that automates and streamlines repeatable processes encourages the finance team to focus on matters that need resolution and critical judgment. 

Visit our Strategic CFO Resources Hub for more information on the key challenges affecting finance teams, what’s holding finance professionals back – and importantly, what you can do about it. 

Organising your finance team to support your strategy 

One of the most critical factors in building a highly effective finance team is to structure the team to support your business strategy.  

According to Forbes, a CFO should think about “curating” their finance team rather than “structuring” their team. The team should have a mix of capabilities that go beyond traditional finance technical skills and incorporate talent that includes leadership skills, relationship management, communication skills and problem-solving. 

If these skills do not already exist in the team, they can be developed through training and mentoring. Once trained, the finance team should be given the opportunity to use their new skills through interactions with the rest of the business, to improve strategic business partnerships in other departments and outside the business. 

Tactics to help develop a strong finance team 

A strong finance team’s key characteristics include many factors spanning people, processes and technology. 

People with diverse backgrounds with a varied mix of skills and experience provides a range of technical abilities that can support and challenge each other, and combine to support and enhance the broader team and business. These include: 

  1. Enhance non-technical skills. According to the Work Institute’s 2022 Retention Report, 33% of people left their roles due to seeking greater opportunities for growth, training and resources. Aim to develop your team members’ careers within the organisation, including different roles within the company, growth in their current position, or new non-technical skills. 

  2. Develop storytelling as a skill. Although the finance team will be fluent in understanding financial data, the wider company may not be. Therefore, develop communication skills in your team that incorporate storytelling. This will help a non-technical audience understand not only the company financials but also get to know more about the work of the finance team and therefore build rapport with other business departments. 

  3. Create coaches and mentors. Build your team’s coaching and mentoring capabilities to not only develop soft skills but also to support new team members and embed a coaching culture into your department. This will improve relationships with the teams and enhance retention rates through continued support. 

  4. Prioritise continued professional development. In the Work Institute’s report, 22% of employees left due to career reasons, including opportunities for growth, promotion or achievement. Ensure that continuous professional development is top of mind when building your high-performing finance team, to keep skills current and develop new skills to attain promotions and career development. We have a world-class Learning Management System that can help in this department. 

  5. Focus in on recruitment. Gartner's report "Leading the Next-Generation Finance Workforce" states that three out of four finance organisations will have a skills shortage because they do not consider nontechnical skills such as innovation and digital skills during the hiring process. Seek to diversify your team when hiring by looking for strong interpersonal and digital skills, varied backgrounds and technical skills. 

  6. Encourage cross-functional working to connect to all departments. A highly effective finance team has a vital role in the business, ensuring that they are a strategic partner with the leadership team and can communicate to provide financial insight and support for growth. Consider having lunch and learn sessions where the team can present the current state of the business using storytelling and enable people from other parts of the company to get to know the finance team and what they do. To further integrate with other departments, place finance team members in departments that may need additional support to help enhance the knowledge of other non-finance teams and build better business relationships. 

Improve your finance systems to support your new business approach 

Ineffective, inefficient, or out-of-date processes can mean that your team will spend additional time working around processes or on manual tasks when they could be spending their time more effectively and efficiently. Here are five steps you can take to review and improve your finance processes: 

  1. Identify and review all existing processes – catalogue all your existing processes and highlight any areas where process improvements could be made, such as bottlenecks or duplication of tasks. 

  2. Process mapping – document and map out all the existing finance processes, including their interactions across departments, and then identify where process improvements can be made. 

  3. Identify process technology – conduct a review of all technology that is required to support and automate your newly mapped finance processes, so that you can maximise process performance and increase the finance team’s capacity. 

  4. Train your team – once your new technology and improved processes are in place, train your team in the new working practices, fully document the new processes and communicate the benefits to your team and the wider business. 

  5. Post Implementation Review – after a few weeks, review the new processes and technology. Consult your team for any feedback on the performance or any glitches that need to be resolved. Identify any improvements that can be implemented in the next iteration. 

By taking the time to identify and resolve system and process inefficiencies, you can greatly improve the performance of your finance team. You’ll remove bottlenecks and out-of-date practices, and free up your team to provide more value to the wider business. 

And that’s the very reason for the promise we make through our software solutions” Freedom to do more. 

Technology factors and connected data 

Technology factors include taking a more comprehensive view of technology and how it can benefit the finance team, including enabling connected data. According to Gartner's report - Unlock Your Finance Team's Digital Potential, there are five key digital competencies that are relevant for finance teams: 

  1. Technological literacy – knowing how to exploit technology for better outcomes for the finance team and the business. 

  2. Digital translation – being able to explain how the technology interacts with finance stakeholders, processes and systems. 

  3. Digital learning and development – quickly incorporating new digital learning requirements. 

  4. Digital bias management – understanding bias in machine learning and managing the associated risks. 

  5. Digital ambition – the capability and drive to take on new technology and ways of working. 

However, according to the same study, only 21% of finance teams have technological literacy – one of the most important factors in today’s finance world. 

Analysis of connected data 

Successful finance teams also prioritise ensuring that they have a complete view of the business using technology that connects every department and unifies data. 

A 360-degree view of the business provides the finance team and other departments across the business with a unified view of what’s relevant to them. Connected data used by all teams means that analysis and planning will be accurate and up-to-the-minute, allowing both the CFO and the wider business to plan and make decisions that matter, with confidence. 

In summary

By leveraging the right technology, automating processes and using data and analytics more effectively and encouraging data to be shared, updated, commented on and valued, the finance team can add value to the business by going beyond the obvious data interpretations, uncovering the real drivers to business growth and making evidence-based decisions.

Learn more about how our Finance Management Software can help you automate your financial processes, connect your data, and support you as you build your highly effective finance team.

Visit our Strategic CFO Resources Hub for additional insights into the issues affecting CFOs and their finance teams, and the direction you need to take to evolve and become more strategic.