Are You Building the Right Culture for the Finance Department of Tomorrow?

Long gone are the days where finance was only the domain of number-crunching and keeping the company finances in order. Companies now want and increasingly expect their financial leaders to be strategically impactful and versatile, while also being strong communicators. These traits were not associated with the finance department in the past.

Business leaders need to be aware that the finance function is evolving and taking a more strategic approach to their overall processes. Because of the uncertainty brought on by constant market changes, founders and CFOs alike are shifting their strategy to prioritize a more holistic approach to support organizational growth. One of the most important aspects that's now taking center stage is culture and its overall impact on the finance team. A $1.2M culture transformation in financial services yielded $7.78M in returns (548% ROI) through 24% lower turnover and 16% productivity gains.

It’s not uncommon for a company to fail due to an unsustainable and unsupportive environment. Whether you're a founder of a company or a manager of a team, it's essential that all leaders within an organization understand how culture can make or break the entire company. In fact, 50-60% of M&A deals fail due to cultural issues, contributing to an overall 70-90% failure rate for transactions.

Below, we dive into some of the top tips on how to create a flourishing work environment that not only supports the finance team, but the company at large.

Why does it matter to have a good finance culture?

Effective 'finance culture' drives not just operational efficiency but also shapes strategic decision-making and overall company success...

Steps to Build a Strong Finance Culture

1. Fully embrace change

Running each department in isolation is no longer possible if a company wants to perform at an optimal level. To drive organizational performance from the unique position of finance, the CFO and their team must understand each department and its inner workings on an intimate level. In addition, this cross-functional collaboration improves relationships among team members and helps align each individual on shared organizational goals.

Organizations with strong cross-functional collaboration are 20% more likely to achieve higher financial performance and report 30% higher innovation rates.

2. Digital mindset at all times

Out with the legacy and in with the digital, companies are focusing resources on upgrading their tech stacks. With the increasing awareness of conventional systems’ shortcomings, businesses are more eager to incorporate new tech-led solutions. Thus, being part of a successful enterprise these days means ensuring that all teams are fully embracing a digital environment.

3. Interdepartmental collaboration

Running each department in isolation is no longer possible if a company wants to perform at an optimal level. To drive organizational performance from the unique position of finance, the CFO and their team must understand each department and its inner workings on an intimate level. In addition, this cross-functional collaboration improves relationships among team members and helps align each individual on shared organizational goals.

Assessing Your Current Finance Culture

It's vital to understand the strengths and areas for improvement in your finance team to create a thriving finance culture.

Survey or Poll: Conduct anonymous surveys to capture how your finance team views collaboration, technology adoption, and leadership communication.
Performance KPIs: Evaluate how effectively your finance team meets deadlines, produces accurate reports, and collaborates with other departments.

How the strategic finance team can help shape a great company culture

Organizations are more and more reliant on their financial departments to lead them from the front with optimal strategic financial management. But for this to happen, companies must interconnect a series of elements if they want to create a culture where all teams have the opportunity to thrive.

These include hiring the right people, investing in strategy-focused training, committing to technological innovation investment that facilitates optimal strategy execution, and designing the kind of workflow process that positions the team to shine.

Besides, finance leaders should focus on empowering finance department employees to take on more strategic responsibilities. This is crucial to strike the right balance while creating a company culture focused on organizational vision and strategy. With FP&A software implementation surging 221% in 2024, jumping from 19% to 61% of CFOs adopting these solutions, building a working system with strategic finance at its core should be the primary business goal for a scaling team.

The must-haves all finance leaders should focus on

Leading the organizational strategy is a significant challenge for scaling finance teams. Identifying and hiring the best financial talent in a competitive market is already a tough job. On top of this, hiring has become even more difficult by the need to engage qualified professionals with proven strategic skills.

The risk of hiring the wrong team members will have a trickle-down effect on the company culture. Finance professionals not only need to do their core job, but they must also be able to communicate well with other departments to pull in the same direction and keep their company’s best interests front of mind.

Besides, finance leaders should focus on empowering finance department employees to take on more strategic responsibilities. This is crucial to strike the right balance while creating a company culture focused on organizational vision and strategy. Also, for a scaling team, building a working system with strategic finance at its core should be the primary business goal.

Investing in Finance Culture Now for Tomorrow's Success

To streamline your current strategic finance processes and empower finance experts to do their best work, you need to make technology integration and training easy.

Advanced FP&A capabilities can enhance your team's optimal execution, as well as merge data from all departments. Our financial planning and analysis software enables collaboration, so everyone can come together to plan, report, analyze and share.

If you want to build the right business environment to boost your finance team performance and strengthen your finance culture, request a demo today.