Value creators: From finance partner to strategic adviser

Over the past few decades, the profession has evolved beyond a pure compliance remit as we finance and accounting professionals have established ourselves as essential business partners. Paul Turner, vice-president – UK and Europe at The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) writes

While we still ensure that our organisations meet their legal obligations, we also help to drive growth, enhance efficiency, fund innovation, manage risk, drive productivity and influence leadership decision-making.

Undoubtedly, finance and accounting professionals have played a pivotal role in our organisations’ success to date.

Although we have achieved much as a profession, we should not be complacent, however. The fast-moving nature of today’s business environment demands that we keep evolving and reinventing ourselves. In fact, I believe we are on the cusp of an exciting inflection point. We are about to make the leap from business partner to strategic adviser, enabled by new technological tools and our enhanced human capabilities.

This shift is being driven by a combination of factors. CFOs are increasingly expected to balance cost optimisation with growth, accelerate AI adoption, support finance transformation and develop new digital capabilities within their teams. Gartner’s latest research highlights rising expectations around AI, technology investment and finance transformation, alongside growing pressure on finance leaders to help organisations navigate complexity and drive performance.

With this in mind as strategic advisers, we will create new value by providing the indispensable insights and knowledge that will enable our organisations to seize new market opportunities, pre-solve major problems and flourish in a world that will be defined by the transition to a more sustainable economy and advances in AI. So how can we evolve from where we are now to being the trusted strategic advisers of the future?

1. See ourselves as advisers, not technicians. In an era when compliance will increasingly be automated, real-time and embedded into business processes, we should not see our primary function as ticking boxes. Instead, we will be expected to think outside the box, with our advisory identity being central to our professional relevance. Amid a deluge of information – and misinformation – organisational leaders and our peers in other functions will seek us out for our insights, knowledge and ethical judgement. What’s more, as AI transforms what our organisations do and how they do it, we will provide the vital assurance that data and systems are being used competently and responsibly.
2. Be able to tell the human stories behind the data. Finance and accounting has long been pigeon-holed as a ‘number-crunching’ profession. Sure, we are highly skilled at gathering, managing and presenting data. But it is how we interpret data that will matter in the age of AI. We must be able to understand not only what the data means for our own business, but what it means for our industry, our community and society at large. What are the risks it reveals? What are the opportunities? How can we use it to create and protect value? We must use data to look forward as well as backwards, and make insightful predictions about how markets will evolve.
3. Have agency and continuously upskill. Becoming a trusted strategic adviser will not happen by magic. We must make it happen by investing in our own development. That means learning and enhancing the skills that will enable us to create value in future – skills such as strategic and critical thinking, collaboration and relationship building, and the interpretation of AI output. It should also go without saying that we will need to be accomplished users of AI tools, with the ability to undertake in-depth scenario planning.

The shift towards becoming a trusted strategic adviser is a key theme identified by Rise2040, a profession-wide research initiative launched by AICPA and CIMA. The initiative brings together 6,000 insights from across the globe to collectively explore, challenge and shape the future of accounting.

Research participants highlighted that finance and accounting professionals will bring discernment, perspective and stability in an era of widespread uncertainty. We will also ‘connect the dots’ that underpin value creation by integrating finance with strategy, operations and technology.

It is by embracing the evolution of our profession that we will transform from the business partners of today into the strategic partners of tomorrow – and help lead our organisations successfully into the future.