These days, every finance outlet and thought leader is urging you to become more strategic. But you’re probably left wondering, “What do I actually need to do?”
That’s the question at the heart of The Finance Leaders’ Guide to Scaling Strategic Finance. It’s our free guide and roadmap for finance leaders. The guide covers three stages of strategic finance maturity and offers five key criteria to assess your progress and grow deeper.
Without FP&A driving and informing business strategy, opportunities get left on the table.
Curious about the guide? Here are 5 of the biggest insights and priorities you’ll discover when you dive inside.
5 Priorities for Your Strategic Finance Journey
- Redefine Finance's Role
Modern FP&A teams have a unique opportunity. Instead of staying sidelined with transactional modeling and planning work, take an active role in the collaborative planning process.
We explain ways to:
- Build stronger relationships with your business partners.
- Influence successful business decisions through faster scenario planning.
- Gain insight into your operational challenges and opportunities.
- Measure Your Maturity Level
Don’t let the online gurus fool you – you can’t achieve strategic finance mastery in one month, or even in one year! It helps to envision a progression from the early stages to becoming a mature strategic finance leader.
Our guide evaluates strategic finance maturity in 3 stages. Each stage includes high-level goals to aim for. For example, at ‘Stage One’ you should aim to ‘produce a collaborative annual budget for the business that considers interdependent department plans’.
- Each stage explains ‘why’ – the strategic value you’ll gain from accomplishing the goals.
- Assessment questions guide you to determine if you’ve mastered each stage and are ready to grow deeper.
- Get Specific
We’ve always felt that ‘strategic finance’ discussions are too vague. Our guide uses five criteria as a rubric to help you pinpoint and improve the most important aspects of your FP&A function.
There are five key criteria we use in Stage One, Two, and Three. We constantly revisit them so you can ask, “How can our finance team become more strategic in this area?”
That means you get practical steps and ideas for how to improve your:
- Data
- Collaboration
- Agility
- Frequency of Reporting & Forecasting
- Technology
…no matter what maturity stage you’re at!
- Incorporate Technology
Thriving strategic FP&A teams need a supportive digital infrastructure. But we don’t necessarily recommend that ‘Stage One’ teams immediately overhaul into a bespoke, consultant-built finance platform. We include specific recommendations at each stage for how modern FP&A tools can increase your strategic capacity.
- Master the Finance-Operations Connection
Operational insights are often the missing puzzle piece that hinders FP&A from connecting their insights to business action. Our guide emphasizes the importance of knowing what drives revenue for your business. With a deep understanding of operational drivers, you can provide better forecasting and insights that your C-suite will thrive on.
Start Here To Scale Your Strategic Finance Maturity
“The Finance Leader’s Guide to Scaling Strategic Finance Maturity” is like sitting down with an experienced finance mentor who understands the unique challenges at your business stage and size. If other guides and articles have left you wanting more practical advice, this is the roadmap you need.
Ready to start the journey?
Subscribe to the Strategic Finance Brief
You can unsubscribe at any time, no hard feelings. Privacy policy
