Ep. 24: Debbie Jacobs - FP&A: Leadership and Relationships

Contact
Debbie: www.linkedin.com/in/debbiejacobscmamba 


Debbie's Work:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tackling-fpa-budget-process-debbie-jacobs/


 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/improving-communication-within-fpa-debbie-jacobs/



FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


Adam: (00:00)


Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host, Adam
Larson and I'm joined as always by my cohost Mitch Roshong. We
are here to bring you the latest perspectives and learnings in
management accounting as told by industry leaders shaping the
profession. For today's episode of Count Me In, Mitch spoke with
Debbie Jacobs about cross functional relationships as FP&A
leaders. Mitch, what kind of insight did Debbie have to
share? 


 


Mitch: (00:33)


Debbie Jacobs built strong relationships to ultimately drive
change at many well known companies like Hewlett Packard,
Honeywell and Johnson and Johnson. She shared her perspectives on
forging relationships with cross functional departments and the
value of aligning all teams activities with the same business
drivers to become valued organizational leaders from the FP and a
team. In our conversation, Debbie was also able to tell a lot of
real life examples which made her answers very interesting and
engaging. Let's go to this discussion now so you can hear for
yourself. 


 


Mitch: (01:03)


How do you go about building relationships with cross functional
departments such as marketing, research and development or
operations? 


 


Debbie: (01:19)


You need to show a genuine interest in learning their perspective
and their world. And you can go about that in a many different
ways. One of my favorite ways of doing it was when I was with
Johnson and Johnson. And there I would spend a day out with the
sales rep. My finance role there was, I was the finance director
supporting commercial operations, which was sales and marketing.
And so by spending a day going out with the sales rep, I was able
to listen to our customers but also see my business partners,
that sales rep you know, going about his job or her job all day
long and see what kind of issues they came up with and how they
addressed issues as they came about. And I encouraged my team to
do the same and it really gave us a different perspective on our,
on our business partner. So in addition to showing a genuine
interest in learning their perspective and putting yourself in
their shoes, it also helps to be present where the informal
discussions are taking place. You know, oftentimes we're in
meetings with our business partners, but there's a lot of
conversations that happen around the so called water cooler. And
if you can figure out where those conversations are happening and
become a part of the team that way and not in a forced way. But
an example I would give is why was that Hewlett Packard and I had
recently joined a new division that had been acquired. So the
people, my business partners were all people coming in from a
company that had been acquired. They liked to play Bridget lunch
in the, in the company cafeteria. And, and so I learned to play
bridge, which I haven't done before. Simply so that I had an
opportunity to sit down with them at lunch and become part of
those informal conversations. 


 


Mitch: (03:32)


And why is it so important for these other operations or
functions of the business to really buy into FP&A and, you
know, how do you go about convincing them that, you know, you
appreciate their relationship and what they have to offer? 


 


Debbie: (03:51)


Sure. So in my experience working in FP&A, the senior
leadership of the business typically looks to FP&A as the,
the voice of reason or the voice of objectivity. And in order for
us to fill that role, we really need to have a strong partnership
build up with the other functions R&D marketing sales. So
that we can look at the analysis from multiple points of view.
And with that relationship with the business partners, we can
drill down in our conversations. I like to call it the, the five
levels of why which some of the listeners may have heard of and
we need that relationship with marketing or R&D experts to
engage with FP&A so that we can do that drill down past the
first level of why. So that when the senior leadership turns in a
meeting and looks at us and says, you know, what do you think we
have enough knowledge beyond sort of the top level skimming of
it, of whatever the business case may be, to really be able to
answer thoroughly that we understand what is being asked for and
give a solid opinion on it. An example I would give is early in
my career I was actually a financial analyst at Hewlett Packard
and I was part of this big cross functional team and we were
investigating whether or not to expand the plant operation. And
this was in semiconductors. Do we build a new way for fab to meet
the increasing demand? Do we add a third shift to our existing
lines? Do we outsource the information? And so as part that
business case, I had to work with marketing on the forecasted
demand. I had to work with its supply chain and all of the
different options of running a third shift or what would it cost
to build out a new plant or and then also with R and D, I had to
partner with them on what is the technology doing and how is it
changing and how would that impact our decision, but when it came
time to present the business case, once we had made our decision
and we needed a substantial capital investment, we had to take it
up several levels within the company. And it still sticks to me
to this day that I remember sitting in this room with a bunch of
senior leaders and I was probably the lowest level in the room as
a financial analyst. And yet the group level CEO turned to me and
asked point blank from my opinion on the option we had chosen
versus the other two. And they, he did that because we're
supposed to be that objective voice. I don't have you know,
something at stake here with the different options that were
chosen. I'm trying to look at them objectively and that is the
role FP&A played. But I wouldn't have been able to answer his
question on the spot like that if I hadn't been able to do all of
the due diligence ahead of time in partnership with the other
functions. 


 


Mitch: (07:26)


If everyone truly needs each other for a successful business
strategy to be implemented, what are some of the biggest
challenges in leveraging these relationships?
Cross-functionally, 


 


Debbie: (07:38)


The biggest challenge I've ever seen has, has been around
communication. If communication isn't spot on then you cause a
lot of confusion. You have information that may be out of date
that you're using, that a business partner may have updated.
Deadlines could be changing and you're not aware of it. So to be
effective communication really needs to be frequent and timely
and, and understandable. And I'll start with the understandable.
And by what I mean by that is if I'm using technical finance
terms that my business partners are familiar with, then the
chances are I'm not going to get the information I need to do my
job because I'm not communicating effectively on what exactly the
data ...