财务BP如何快速上手，帮助公司改善业绩

财务BP研习社

译者按：本文翻译自领英系列博文。该作者Anders Liu-Lindberg毕业于哥本哈根商学院，系丹麦咨询公司BPI（Business Partnering Institute）合伙人兼COO和CMO，对BP体系有深刻的理解和实际工作经验。本文旨在帮助转型财务BP的群体快速进入角色，区分该岗位与传统财务的不同之处。

• How Finance Business Partners Improve Company Performance？财务BP如何帮助公司改善业绩

Following my recent series on finance business partnering I was asked to summarize what it is a finance business partner actually does?  I have been writing about what finance business partnering really is and what a finance business partner should do first thing once started in the job. However, put in the simplest terms what is a finance business partner doing?

过去我的系列文章中受邀撰写了一些关于财务BP具体做些什么。我已经谈过了“财务BP究竟是什么”，“财务BP就职后应做的第一件事”。然而如何用最简单却相对专业的口吻来描述财务BP的具体工作？

严格来说广义的财务BP并不是某个具体岗位的名字，而是公司对某个中后台部门的期望，希望这个部门在业务部门面前扮演的角色（Role）。对人力资源管理理论有些了解的人应该知道，一般大公司HR部门发布岗位职责或招聘启事，都把工作职责清单命名为“Roles & Responsibilities”（角色与责任），可见责任（即日常做什么工作）是由角色而定的。

很多企业会把这类岗位命名为FP&A（财务计划分析），Business Controller（业务监控/管理），PFC（Project Financial Controller，项目财务管理）等等，其实这些岗位的角色都可以被理解为就是财务BP。

There is no doubt about that if you look at job descriptions for the role when companies are hiring they are doing many things. I looked through 23 job ads on LinkedIn where companies were hiring finance business partners. The top 5 responsibilities were.

在求职的时候，求职者无疑会先阅读公司的岗位描述（job descriptions），这当中就有很多信息。我查阅了领英上23个财务BP相关的招聘信息，下列是出现频率最高的5个工作职责：

• Forecasting or Budgeting
• 预测与预算
• Management Reporting
• 管理报告
• Performance Management
• 业绩管理
• Strategic Plans
• 战略规划
• Financial Analysis
• 财务数据分析

In total, I identified 30 unique tasks and these are only the more hard-core ones whereas the ones relating to influencing are too intangible to count.

我总共归结除了30个相对硬核的工作职责，至于其他相关的工作职责则多到不胜枚举。

• What’s special about finance business partners? 财务BP特殊在哪儿？

It’s clear from above that these responsibilities finance business partners have in common with a range of other positions such as financial analysts or business controllers. So what makes finance business partners different from these related positions? In my experience, I would put it up like this.

显然，财务BP的工作职责与财务分析师和业务主管颇有几分相似之处。那到底它们之间又有什么区别呢？按照个人经验，谈谈我的观点。

*The finance business partner is not involved in the execution

*财务BP并不涉及到决策环节

First of all finance business partners manage performance through analysis of the numbers. They couple the analysis with their knowledge of the business to present recommendations to management or the functions they partner with. They can present several options but typically they should present a recommended option. Management will make its decisions based on the recommendations and the finance business partner will assist in the tactical planning of the initiatives resulting from the recommendations.

首先财务BP是通过数据分析来管理绩效的。他们将自身的财务知识与对业务的理解相结合，向管理层或与他们合作的部门提出改进建议。他们会为管理者提供好几个解决方案选项，通常还会着重推荐其中一个。管理者则根据这些建议决定是否要作出决策，财务BP则协助作出相应的改进战略规划。

At this point they leave it to the frontline to execute on the initiatives but follow up on a monthly or any other agreed upon interval in terms of if the initiatives yield the expected results. This takes them back to performance management. If the initiatives yield the expected results then there is no need for additional actions. However, if things are not moving in the right direction they should discuss with the frontline and present new recommendations for corrective actions. All in all it’s quite simple but it requires trust from management and a good collaboration with the frontline.

在这点上，财务BP是将决策留给一线人员自己去做，但是每个月或其他特定周期，他们会持续观察项目的后续结果。如果项目如期像意料中那样发展，那么无需再操作；但如果与预期产生偏离，则需要与一线人员再研讨出新的调整方案。这套流程听起来很简单，但需要与管理层和一线业务伙伴保持稳定的信任和合作。

设在一线运营单位的财务分析岗和财务BP在职责上（responsibility）则没什么不同，不同更多体现在“角色”（role）这个层面上。

比如，职责同样是审核业务部门的销售、采购合同和经营支出事项，财务BP会被要求发表更多与该业务部门经营业绩改进有关的意见，而不仅是看收付款条件是否符合公司制度、发票种类和价税分离计算得对不对、在不在预算内等等这些常规的财务监控点，后者可能更多是财务分析师的职责。

• How does it compare with what companies are looking for? 与公司的需求相比？

When doing forecasting and budgeting what you do is you chart the course for the coming period be it a year, a quarter, a week, etc. Based on that you propose some recommended actions let’s say investments or cost savings initiatives for the coming period.

当做预测和测算的时候，你的工作是为接下来的一年/季度/周之类的周期制定一张图表。以此为基础，提出接下来的时间里你在投资或节省成本方面有什么打算和举措。

Management will decide what is needed to reach the performance promised to the shareholders and leave it with you and the frontline to get the results.

管理层则将决定以何种方式达成对股东的业绩承诺，并将这一任务交给你和你的一线伙伴。

This aligns well with being involved in the strategic planning. You will then move on to reporting progress on agreed upon initiatives i.e. management reporting and in case things are not progressing as planned you resolve to financial analysis to figure out what is going wrong. In fact, most of what companies were expecting from their finance business partners had some sort of flavour of above.

这个过程与战略规划息息相通。然后，你将持续跟进原定的计划。如果有些进度没完成，你就需要通过财务分析找出并解决问题。事实上，上述描述基本就是大多数公司对财务BP的任职要求。

• Isn’t it still somewhat fluffy? 是不是仍觉得有些抽象？

I’ll give you an example of how this would look like. In one of my previous assignments I was overseeing the performance of a company. At one point I found out that the escalations we had in our contracts (typically a duration of 3-5 years) was not adequately covering the cost increases we were facing. I discussed these concerns with the business and while it did cause some stir they agreed that we should look into it.

我将给你一个实际的案例来说明。我之前有一项工作是监查一家公司的绩效。有一次我发现我们合同（通常期限在3-5年）中的升级条款将导致我们覆盖不了成本。尽管在公司内引起了一些骚动，但业务方还是同意跟我一起商讨这个问题。

Together with the Commercial function we analysed the correlation between market rates and labour costs in the specific geography we were doing business in. We found out that over a long period of time (5+ years) there was a quite strong correlation between the two. However, in a shorter period of time (2-3 years) the correlation was practically non-existent.

与商务部一起探讨的时候，我们发现一些特定业务大区中，市场利率和劳动力价格在长周期内（超过5年）会体现出很明显的相关性，但在短周期内（2-3年）则体现得不明显。

That naturally meant, which is not exactly rocket science, that for shorter contracts we needed a higher risk premium compared to long-term contracts. We could also make a fairly accurate assessment of how much of a difference in the premium was required. Armed with this new knowledge Commercial was now better prepared for future contract negotiations and actually found out that of two recently signed contracts the profitability on each was much different than assumed.

不难发现，短期合同相对长期合同应该具备相对较高的风险溢价，并且我们也可以精确地计算出该溢价。有了这一知识的加持，商务部门就能更好地准备合同条款，并且还发现最近两份新合同中的利润和预期收益有较大偏差。

That basically left me with just managing the performance of the new contracts and describing how we were now yielding better results.

这件事使得我脱离了过去对合同走过场式的管理，而真正让我投入到为企业增益的环节中去。

• The importance of the finance business partner cycle.财务BP循环圈。

The way I see it, following the cycle as described above is quite essential for a finance business partner. First of all, it gives the finance business partner a structured methodology to work from, but just as importantly it helps them understand what tasks they shouldn’t be doing.

在我看来，沿袭上述工作循环对财务BP而言至关重要。首先，它教给财务BP一种结构化的工作方法，并且同样重要的是——它还告诉财务BP哪些工作他们不应该做。

This gives them clear priorities and helps them identify where they can add value. It also tells them what skills are needed to be successful. Being analytical, ability to communicate and stakeholder management would be the most important ones.

这告诉他们哪些工作应该放在优先位置，并且是真正帮助公司增值的。这也告诉他们哪些技能是必须的——分析性思维，沟通力和对与董事会的相处能力都很重要。

• tips to the new finance business partner.给每位财务BP新人的7个小贴士。

What should you actually do when you start in a finance business partner role? Here are 7 tips to the new finance business partner.

当你已经真正成为财务BP的时候你应该做哪些准备工作呢？这里有7个建议给每位财务BP新人。

Start by getting to know your stakeholders. To be an effective finance business partner, you need to manage all your stakeholders well so you need to develop an in-depth understanding of them early on.

从了解利益相关者开始。卓有成效的财务BP最好尽早开始深入了解利益相关者的需求。

Challenge the current numbers. The fast track to failure as a finance business partner is presenting wrong numbers or analyses to the business. Start by reviewing the data flows to see if there is a high degree of transparency and if the numbers are generally understood and accepted by the business.

质疑近期的数据。如果财务BP想业务伙伴提供了错误或不准确的数据，那可就一上来就失败了。反复检查你手中的数据流，看它们是否具有高度的透明性并且能被普遍为业务层理解和接受？

Learn about the business. If you don’t know the business well already start by spending time in the frontline. If you are part of an international company go see how your company works in other parts of the world.

学习业务。如果你还熟悉业务赶紧熟悉起来。如果你身处跨国公司，则需要了解公司在其他国家如何运作。

Pick your best humble attitude. If you want to get buy-in from the business you need to recognize and communicate that finance is a support function and that you are not here to run the business. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t challenge the business by any means, but simply that you are only successful if the business is successful.

拿出你最谦虚的态度。如果你想从业务中学有所成，记住你的职责是支持性的工作，而不是自己在经营业务。这并不意味着你完全不能对业务方提出质疑，但请记住只有业务方成功了你才算成功。

Insist on getting out from your desk and get together with the business. There is much debate about reporting lines for finance business partners (business leaders vs. the finance function), but no matter what you need to spend as much time with the business as possible. Physically sit with them a couple of times a week so you can develop a good relationship with them.

坚持离开办公桌，跟业务人员待在一起。关于财务BP究竟应该向谁汇报的问题（业务主管还是财务主管？）一直存在一定争议，但无论怎样，你都应该尽可能跟业务人员待在一起。跟业务人员在一张桌子旁坐上几个星期对你大有裨益。

Don’t panic about creating results from day 1 all on your own. Finance business partners are expected to deliver value, but you do so by facilitating and communicating as well as analysing how the business runs.

不要为你第一天算出来的报告结果而惊慌。财务BP是来创造价值的，只不过你是通过对业务的分析和沟通实现这点。

Don’t ask frontline managers what you can help them with. You are expected to figure this one out on your own most of the time. You do so by participating in meetings and talking with the business and picking up on what’s said between lines. Frontline managers will be quite impressed if you can “read” their minds.

不要问一线主管你能帮到什么忙。在大多数情况下你才是那个来发现问题的人。你需要不断参与部门会议，与各条线的伙伴多多交流。一线主管会非常诧异你的“读心术”。

• You are the new face of finance.当你作为财务新面孔。

As the finance business partner, you are expected to take charge of finance and give it a good image amongst frontline managers. Finance is their partner and someone they can count on to help deliver business results.

作为财务BP，你要负责在一线经理心目中树立个好印象。财务人员应该是他们在业绩汇报时靠得住的伙伴。

They are no longer just naysayers who don’t have the slightest idea the business and what the frontline managers are doing. Finance now wants to be part of the business and the finance business partner needs to take them there. It’s a tall order, but you can find a bit of comfort in the fact that most companies still haven't managed to get the desired value out of the business partner concept.

财务人员不再会是对业务和一线人员一窍不通但又一个劲儿摇头拒绝别人的人。财务BP应该是带领业财走向一体的那个人。这是一个相当高的要求。但你也可以获得些许安慰——大多数公司其实都没能让“财务BP”发挥预期的威力。

That means you have a great chance of surprising and impressing both the CFO and the frontline.

这意味着你仍有大把的机会惊艳到CFO和一线业务层。