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Finance/business partners
The trend in management accountancy's expansion continues towards management skills and supporting decision making.
Business intelligence could release many management accountants from the budgeting and reporting cycle to take on the business partnering role - see CIMA's report, Improving decision making in organisations: unlocking business intelligence (PDF 1.4MB).
As yet there are no established best practice models or processes for finance/business partners.
However, it is clear that finance/business partners should possess a broad range of wider business skills, as well as the core skills and financial disciplines of the traditional accountant.
They need to understand the relevance of the information they provide and be able to share insights, influence decisions and manage performance.
The challenge is to go beyond mere measurement and make an impact on business strategy.
Although the nature of the finance/business partner varies, an emerging ideal is that of a ‘challenging sparring partner’.
The CIMA executive report, Improving decision making in organisations: the opportunity to transform finance (PDF 1.22MB), provides valuable case studies on this subject.
