Tool Box
Issue No. 49 - October/November 2009
How to build a great financial team
by Chris Gebhardt
Nothing contributes to your business efficiency like the long-term collaboration of key financial players. This team is the epicentre of every great business.
More than ever, effective communication between those who prepare your financial management data, those who provide external resource support and those responsible for the strategic direction of your organisation, is essential.
A recent McKinsey survey of companies in Europe, Japan and the USA has found most executives think knowledge management begins and ends with building sophisticated IT systems. Therein lies a problem: what you need to capture is knowledge, not just data. Knowledge management should be about systems integration and, more importantly, about your people.
Industry-specific management systems incorporating accounting software have led to significant changes in the way management financials get processed and interpreted - and in the skills needed to dissect, disseminate and implement this information.
While the skills and qualifications remain essential, most financial ‘linear’ workers also need to think much more ‘laterally’.
When the operating environment is so complex it becomes impossible to process everything in-house; it dictates a greater reliance on external resources to provide the expertise and knowledge you need. This places the value in your business in the middle of a collaborative financial team.
While no one was looking, everyone’s friend ‘value’ has moved from the centre of business to the centre of your key financial relationships.
The Power of Three
The mainstay of every ‘financial team’ is the relationship between client and accountant, but the bookkeeper - traditionally a non-qualified financial administrator - is now seen as a ‘paralegal’ equivalent in the financial sector. Qualified bookkeepers play an important role in delivering external resources. While not an ‘either-or’ alternative to ac...
