How to Keep Your Finance Staff

by Angie Mak, 11 June 2010

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Human Capital Management Management

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changing role of finance organization finance function Nokia Siemens Networks staff retention

Stephan Prosi, APAC Head of Finance and Control at Nokia Siemens Networks, spoke to CFO Innovation’s Angie Mak on the secrets for smooth collaboration between the finance and sales teams, and how being on the winning team can keep staff motivated.

What is the finance team’s relationship with sales and procurement at Nokia Siemens Networks?

I see a development in the finance team. [During the downturn], their core functions, like ensuring data quality control, shoring up working capital, improving operational efficiency, have gained a much stronger focus — especially operational efficiency and working capital. Not only in our company but across the industry, the finance team has become more important.

But what we also see very strongly in Nokia Siemens Networks is that the finance team is part of the business decision-making process. We are not only on the controlling side — which we certainly are — but we are part of decision making and strategy setting. We provide input, we provide facts, opinions. I like to say we provide reason — I guess from a finance perspective, that’s what you would say. So we are part of the strategy, business-planning, but also business decisions, like deal making.

In that sense, the sales and finance teams collaborate early on in a deal?

Yes, basically throughout the cycle. [The finance team is] part of the long-range planning, and we are part of business decisions — which in our industry, are usually two- or three-year binding commitments. We are also part of short-range target setting.

We also have a very strong involvement in implementation. That’s part of finance. We have to ensure accuracy and accountability. We are very much involved throughout the whole process, which is part of what makes it interesting.

Do you have a very specific culture or way of nurturing the two teams to work together more smoothly?

I believe we have a culture of the finance team being part of the account teams — on the customer-facing side, but also part of the management teams. We have a solid-line reporting structure to the CFO. However, we also have a dotted-line reporting function to the business owner, like a customer team head or a business unit head. So we are very much part of the individual leadership teams, and therefore also part of decision-making and future-setting.

And from my perspective, I believe it is working very well. It is important to have the facts and figures, properly analysed, properly interpreted in decision-making.

What’s the best part of their collaboration? Is there a team dynamic going on that’s different from other companies?

I think it’s a very close relationship of working together. There is a joint goal, joint targets. Targets are often represented in financial numbers, but there might be also other important technology targets.

It is a joint team that is pragmatic, that is hard-working. It is a very close link.

It’s interesting because in some companies, if you don’t have check-and-balance, the sales team sometimes makes rash promises to customers.
Controlling is always a part of finance. It is a core competency, core task that we have. This is why, like in other companies, we have a fixed line reporting to the CFO, which gives [us] — as a finance person — some independence from the business. But this independence should not lead to being a policeman, because the policeman only comes in once something wrong has happened.

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