FP & A VS Finance Business Partner

Tunc Tezel, Finance VP Europe, Ontex

Tunc Tezel, Finance VP Europe, Ontex

Lately we were having a debate about the roles and titles of business supporting finance managers and whether to call them FP&A Managers or Finance Business Partners… Sounds philosophical, but in a way we started to expect more and more from our finance colleagues and seeing them as one-stop-shop where GM’s or Commercial Directors seek answers to all of their questions.

Sounds sexy or appealing right? But when it comes to delivering the answers or results at times, it is overwhelming! In the never ending world of automation, integrating systems, bringing in BOTs replacing FTE employees, it is getting more and more demanding from the ones who are trying to tell stories about the numbers & bringing them to life. Storytelling has always been the compelling part of the FP&A job and is becoming more and more important in a data driven world, becoming a skill differentiator.

In the early 00’s, in simple terms, the job of FP&A managers were to collect volumes, prices and costs and come up with analysis on the P&L. We were to do analysis on promotions, value creation from gross to net analysis with very limited data either from market research agencies such as Nielsen/Kantar or again very limited EPOS data from some of the retailer partners. So the incoming data was very limited, with time lag and the world was simpler. Even the consumers and sales channels were not as sophisticated. It was easier to estimate the consumption, trends and financials even under hyperinflationary environment in developing markets. It was predominantly one in Excel for analysis and graphs and some basic dashboards were introduced for KPI monitoring.

In today’s world, accelerated by the pandemic, the consumers have evolved and became very sophisticated; their needs have changed together with their expectations, and became impatiently service oriented. They start considering convenience above all at the tip of their fingertips through mobile phones and tablets. Sales channels started focusing on meeting the consumer demands and moving towards online sales, trying to predict consumer expectations/behaviors/trends. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies all of a sudden end up with loads of data unable to analyze all and there was a massive burden on the supply chains; not enough warehouses, transportation became a bottleneck, wrong predictions ended up with wrong inventories, service level issues and unhappy consumers becoming disloyal and shopping around for quick satisfaction. Nowadays, it is all about artificial intelligence & machine learning (AI/ML) technologies used for forecasting and analysis, interactive data visualisations tailored for different users in the corporate hierarchy.

" In today’s world, accelerated by the pandemic, the consumers have evolved and became very sophisticated; their needs have changed together with their expectations, and became impatiently service oriented "

As a result, the role of the FP&A has evolved into finance business partnering building trust and aligning cross functional teams driving the quick decision making at relevant levels:

- they became the link between customer facing sales department,
- trying to become super agile Supply Chain and Manufacturing departments to deliver OTIF great quality products,
- supporting the marketing in analysing the trends and consumer behaviors based on real time data and
- Trying to cope and beat the raw material inflation, which has not been seen in developed economies for decades, through cost-saving initiatives and efficiencies, along with procurement, and
- as well as trying to get the required price increases without impacting the consumption with customers.

Obviously, this was all supported via the IT systems and a plethora of data behind the scenes. As the BOTs have replaced the FTEs doing mainly the repetitive tasks, for the remaining talented employees, “Story Telling” has become a distinctive strength combining the roles of analyst, data scientist, and influencer underneath, providing clear insights, leveraging storytelling with clarity and impact to influence decision making and creating value for the business.

The ones who can link the dots with other departments, derive conclusions on the prompt analysis of data, and make recommendations to drive business forward in a light speed without blinking, will be the winners in the ever changing and evolving world. So fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride whilst we will continue to drive into the uncomfortable, unknown.