
CFO Innovation Asia and CIMA sat down with a select group of CFOs, CEOs, management consultants and area specialists in a roundtable discussion in April 2011. Participants shared their experiences regarding the finance function’s journey to true business partnership, pondered the challenges ahead, and weighed potential solutions and other issues.
Challenges identified by the roundtable participants include the following:
- Ensuring that finance remains impartial and independent as staff partnering gets embedded into the business
- Designing the appropriate structure and business reporting lines for finance and the business
- Finding additional funding to support finance’s shift to business partnering
- Making sure finance business partners possess business skills, a grounding in accounting and finance, and appropriate soft skills
- Overhauling the way students are trained in finance and accounting