What Outsiders Really Think of Finance

by Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, 18 December 2011

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CIMA’s report, Ledgers to Leadership, tracks how finance professionals are viewed by their non-finance peers in terms of the two types of competency that they exercise (business competency versus technical skills), as shown in Exhibit 1 below.

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Exhibit 1: Importance of finance professionals’ skills to non-finance management

Primacy of technical skills

Outside of finance, overall management attaches a much greater relative importance to technical accounting (not IT) skills and appear to consider these as the core value skills that finance professionals bring to an organisation, to the point that technical accounting dominates all other proficiencies.

Yet, it is interesting that while considered important, these were rated almost least important by finance professionals themselves (Exhibit 2). There is, however, consensus between finance professionals and non-finance personnel regarding the relatively high importance of communication, problem-solving and interpersonal skills.

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Exhibit 2: Importance of skills to the finance professional

The implication of this apparent difference of opinions is that, to a degree, finance professionals take their technical competency for granted and concentrate on the development of business competency. The latter may be more of a challenge but is also a skill set they realise is becoming more of a requirement.

At the same time, finance professionals also see a need for a complex interplay of skills. Non-finance management perceive clearly that it is technical skills that set finance professionals apart and that add greatest value to the organisation.

However, while technical competency is deemed as critical, management also recognises that business competency and commercial and management skill sets are important. Furthermore, this need for both technical and business skills extends across all finance role types.

Business competency

The importance placed on business competency by finance personnel, together with the requirement from non-finance management for a combination of both technical and business competency, clearly points to a shift in collaboration within the organisation, with finance bridging the technical and business areas and becoming value creators.

This is supported by some of CIMA’s consultations, which point to the need for all finance professionals to have this mix; business partners require sound technical knowledge while the specialist roles (such as tax, treasury and reporting) equally need good business skills to interact better within the business and with other stakeholders.

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