Leave a Comment:
1 comment
I quite agree with all of your points and particularly that FBPs should be seen as peer to presumably the service managers/directors they are supporting. I recently finished my DBA on FBP in relation to their strategic support to the senior management in their strategic decision making process. The organisation is highly hierarchical with greater power-distance ideology. The FBPs in this organisation are middle level officers, therefore, they have little or no access to the senior executives. More often than not, these senior executives are making financial/investment decisions without input from the FBPs with disastrous result. Also, accountants are mostly technically qualified and competent but they are not necessarily cut out to be competent FBPs and many may not provide required support and in most cases they lack commercial knowledge of the service units they are supporting. Few of my recommendations for FBPs in order to be effective are: to learn and be actively involved in the operations of the services they are supporting thereby acquiring knowledge and possibly transfer accounting knowledge to the managers as well. They should have ability to scan the environment (identifying risks and opportunities) and as you have stated turn numbers into in-sight by analysing data using the historical data to predict future. Also, ability to network with senior management where they can acquire vital information that will assists them in providing effective support to their business units managers/directors. Also, I recommended to the case organisation I used for my doctorate degree that FBPs should be regraded to Directors to align with the head of services they are supporting thereby enabling them to access all necessary information and data. Finally, I believe in FBPs to be nearer or situated in the service centres they are supporting rather than located in the headquarters with limited access to the data and information.
Reply