How finance business partners can optimise ‘democratised’ data

Technology is changing the finance department’s partnerships with other teams across the business.

The rise of cloud data platforms, interactive dashboards, and AI-powered tools has made it easier for others to independently access and analyse financial information and other data.

Rebeka Mazzone, CPA, CGMA, refers to this as the “democratisation of data” — and she sees it happening more and more often in her work as a data and finance consultant to leaders in higher education.

“The whole goal, for all of us, is data-driven decision-making,” she said in an interview with FM. “And in order to do that you have to democratise the data. It means that people have to have access to it, they have to understand it — and everyone’s starting from a different place.”

Finance’s partnerships with other teams can be upgraded with a range of tools, from data dashboards to generative AI analysis, cloud data repositories, real-time collaboration tools, and more.

But implementing the technology is just the beginning. Ironically, as expectations for data and analysis rise, finance professionals are having to dig deeper into their soft skills to best collaborate with business partners.

In recent interviews, Mazzone and two other finance leaders — Shreya Shanbhag, ACMA, CGMA, and Aramide Balogun — shared their insights on how to manage changing business partnerships amid the data and AI evolution.

In this world of democratised data, finance can be a guide for other functions, helping them to build their understanding and use of the organisation’s information.

Here are four ways finance can maximise the benefit of the partnering relationship. (See also the sidebar, “Finance’s Risks and Responsibilities”.)

Invite partners to embrace data

There are countless options for how new data and tools might improve a business partnership. But business partners aren’t always ready to embrace the opportunity.

Often, the finance function must first invite partners to make better use of data.

“Technology gives you really great insight, but the biggest challenge we face as finance professionals is, ‘How can we get others to understand that data?’” Mazzone said.

Her meetings with clients in higher education focus on strategic interpretation and decision-making for topics such as university finances and enrolment. She loves it when clients are curious and competent with data and designs her engagements in a way to encourage it.

Mazzone starts by establishing a baseline — her own interpretation of the data.

“I spend maybe one hour analysing the data and three hours playing around, asking how to visualise it, and what … the data [is] telling me,” she explained.

She frames her presentations as hypotheses and invites her partners to ask further questions.

“I need to invite them to lean in and pick the data apart and understand the data,” she said. “I’m presenting this data to faculty, people who are really smart, really educated, and they are going to find every single flaw in the data — and I want them to because I want them to ultimately trust the data.”

Interactivity is part of building that trust. Mazzone prepares her data specifically so that she can make some basic changes during meetings.

“Somebody asks a question, and I slice the data,” she said.

Mazzone avoids getting too deep into data analysis or visualisation during these meetings, however. Instead, the goal is to show her partners the scope of the data and encourage them to ask questions and make requests that can help them use the data to make operational decisions.

The goal is to build the clients’ confidence in the data and strengthen the relationship. And that can be the first step in a journey to encourage other functions to make greater use of dashboards and democratised data.

Decide the right data access level

Finance’s partners in the business increasingly want, and need, access to real-time data. That’s a good thing, the three finance experts agreed. But deciding the right level of access is a balancing act, and it requires effective partnership.

“Sitting with them, I believe, is the crux of business partnering,” said Balogun, the senior statutory and tax controller for Microsoft in West and East Africa. “Understand what they’re trying to achieve, and then use your own judgement to filter … the information that you think is needed.”

The right level of data access depends on the partner, the goal, and the sensitivity of the data itself.

In some cases, a static report, such as an annual update on a supplier, is still the best solution.

On the other hand, a sales team often requires more responsive data. Similarly, dashboards can be helpful for project management. In both cases, partners benefit from real-time comparisons to their goals, whether it’s on cost, revenue, or operational metrics.

“It’s always important for them to monitor how they are tracking against targets,” Balogun said. “Having an interactive dashboard, they can go in every morning or every week — and there are no surprises.”

Shanbhag, who works as the group FP&A manager for Arena Racing Company in the UK, said that moving partners up the ladder of data access can be a gradual process. It might start with a PDF or slides and progress towards dashboards and predictive analytics.

Shanbhag’s company, for example, operates horse and greyhound racing venues. Her goal is to help the business understand everything from food sales trends to workforce management and race scheduling.

“We know that we are the experts in this field,” she said of finance professionals. “But sometimes we fail to understand that when you’re partnering with somebody, they may not be at the same level.”

Shanbhag learns about her partners’ tech and data capabilities through regular meetings.

“When the person asks questions, I know this person has understood [the topic],” she said. And she knows that it’s time for a new tech-based solution when “they’re going to consume the data on a regular basis”.

Mazzone said that small group meetings are ideal for helping others lean into the data. “It allows us to engage more deeply with a group of two to three people at the same time,” she said.

Provide the financial perspective

As business partners make better use of data and technology, it becomes all the more important for finance to help them interpret the data.

“They might not be able to completely interpret what they have filtered on,” Shanbhag said. In fact, business partners may use the data to build overly optimistic plans and strategies.

“You should understand that business partners come from a very positive outlook. They won’t always have a realistic-to-pessimistic side of looking at the data,” she explained.

That can be a challenge for the business partnership. One solution, she said, is to maintain regular meetings where finance can temper any unrealistic interpretations of the data.

When she needs to correct a partner’s interpretation, she tries to “pivot” — acknowledging their ideas, providing additional information, and suggesting a new path.

“Whenever you’re making any statement, you need to be sure of it and back it with data. You are not really being harsh, you’re not questioning the person — you’re addressing the substance of what is happening,” she said.

Use AI and advanced analytics carefully

As organisations pursue deeper data interpretation, it’s all the more important for finance to work collaboratively with business partners to ensure that new technologies are being used responsibly — and human logic is applied appropriately.

In one sense, that means ensuring that advanced analytics and other technologies are producing accurate and useful results.

For example, Mazzone said a university might be interested in employing predictive analytics to project enrolment numbers based on historical trends. Understanding future enrolment trends can help to balance budgets and prepare infrastructure. But those predictions work best when they account for a broader set of data, including demographic changes.

“These tools are absolutely amazing, and you can use them as a great baseline — but then you need to overlay your intellect on top of it,” she said.

And that might require the intellect of more than just the finance department, which might not be able to identify all the relevant data sources on its own.

“When you’re walking into these conversations, you’re walking into them from a questioning perspective … which opens up the ability for other people to introduce their own datasets,” she explained.

With the risk of failure, it’s critical to test and learn about advanced tech solutions before fully deploying them. Finance needs to ensure that new technologies are not only useful but also cost-effective.

“Anything done without an aim is not going to get you any results,” Shanbhag said. For example, her team has dedicated time each month to work with predictive analytics in deployment environments, which allows the team to design new measures and test their accuracy before offering them to the full organisation.

“Having a goal and dedicating some time to it is going to get better results,” she said.

When a project does get underway, finance shares a great deal of the responsibility for protecting against regulatory and operational failures. On one invoice automation project, Balogun said, she had to help the engineering team understand why the solution had to meet certain regulatory considerations.

“I had to bring them down to my level to understand why we were doing what we were doing,” she said.

Meanwhile, the rise of generative AI and automation adds a new set of concerns. Finance should support implementation but also ensure it’s done responsibly, Balogun said.

“You need to continue to educate your employees, both finance and nonfinance, on the importance of using AI responsibly, ensuring that AI information is not just regurgitated, sent, or used in your decision-making without double checking,” she said. “We still need finance professionals to [be the backstop] to ensure we’re leveraging reasonability checks, to ensure AI is not leading us in the wrong direction.”

Despite the risks, Balogun, Shanbhag, and Mazzone are ultimately optimistic about how their partners’ growing access to data and analytics technology could change business relationships.

“It’s the idea of really recognizing where they’re at and trying to bring them on,” Mazzone said. “If you don’t, you’re leaving them behind, and they’re not going to be able to make data-driven decisions.”

Greater use of data and technology in business partnerships creates new risks and responsibilities for finance.

Data security and privacy

Finance holds responsibility for how data is used in the partnership. “Be mindful of data privacy, data provenance, and sharing of personally identifiable information,” said Aramide Balogun, the senior statutory and tax controller for Microsoft in West and East Africa.

Managing access

Set appropriate restrictions on who can access and alter data. “If they end up changing the data, obviously, it’s frustrating,” said Shreya Shanbhag, ACMA, CGMA, the group FP&A manager for Arena Racing Company in the UK. That risk is especially prevalent in consumer-oriented products like Google Sheets, as well as if the organisation is still using multiple local copies of files.

Realistic interpretations

As partners get more access to data, they’ll develop their own interpretations and ideas — of variable quality. Finance must provide a more conservative and grounded view. “We’re trying to find a middle ground between being completely pessimistic and optimistic,” Shanbhag said.

Costs and benefits

Especially for emerging technology like AI and predictive analytics, it’s important to understand whether it will provide benefits worth the cost. Shanbhag’s team has been spending a couple days per month working on predictive analytics and seeing how they perform. “It’s getting the proof of concept,” she said.

Providing a backstop

Finance must help avoid major failures as automation and other technology is deployed in the partnership, Balogun said. That includes providing a focus on regulatory issues as the project is developed; helping partners understand the consequences of operational failure; and auditing the performance of any new system. “Finance professionals have a significant role to play in ensuring that whatever automation or transformation process [is used it will] meet the regulatory requirements and ensure compliance,” she said.

Andrew Kenney is a freelance writer based in the US. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Oliver Rowe at [email protected].

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“Future of the Profession: ‘Business Partnering Is the Gateway to Adding Value”, FM magazine, 10 January 2024

“6 Technology Tips to Enhance Finance Business Partnering”, FM magazine, 12 December 2022

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