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Finance officers in the energy and natural resources sector have already adapted to turbulent times by altering their focus to help the business and are perceived as business advisors rather than controllers, while some of the worst just added up the numbers and told everyone what they already knew.

KPMG’s 2009 Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) finance survey revealed that high performing finance functions are twice as efficient as their competitors.

The research, which surveyed 20 global ENR companies, indicated that high performing finance functions anticipate the needs of the business throughout the commodity life cycle and continue to refine their role, the services they provide, and the appropriate size and shape of their supporting model.

Perhaps most concerning is that nearly four-fifths of respondents lack a global view of key finance processes and allow local systems, manual processes and spreadsheets to pervade management reporting, business planning and project accounting.

The survey’s findings also revealed that poor systems and inefficient processes have helped to create a vicious circle hindering finance’s performance with otherwise unnecessary effort that is being spent on data collection, duplication and re-work in order to gain confidence in the integrity of the data.  The study also found that finance functions in the ENR sector are constrained by a serious lack of skills at the asset level — where it matters most.

“The best finance functions break the circle and burden of complexity by standardizing, simplifying and automating,” said Simon Osmer, KPMG partner.  “They have already adapted to these turbulent times by altering their focus to help the business and are perceived as business advisors rather than controllers.”