Integrative action research paper: Improving finance business strategy

• Main Author: Bumatay, Rose Ann
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2020
• Subjects: Business enterprises—Finance; Decision making; Finance and Financial Management
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5992; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/13105/viewcontent/Bumatay_RoseAnn_11793503_ImprovingFinanceBusinessPartneringStrategy_1_Redacted.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The action research paper focused on improving the finance business partnering strategy of Astellas Pharma Philippines, Inc.’s Finance and Accounting Department. I and my collaborators used the Congruence Model as a process framework and the FP&A Business Partnership Maturity Model as a conceptual framework to guide us during the entire project. Through collaboration, we identified a series of possible gaps or issues that could be addressed to improve the business partnering strategy. After the first cycle, the Finance Team was able to close some gaps in knowledge and some misalignments through a training session. The second cycle helped the budget owners in applying the learnings they gained from the training, through a forecasting exercise. Furthermore, the second cycle helped the Finance team in gaining additional knowledge about the business because of the coordination meeting. During the entire action research cycle, I realized that building trust and buy-in from stakeholders are important in business partnering. In general, the expectations of stakeholders from Finance triggers Finance business partnership behaviour. The unclear role of the finance business partner is not actually a major barrier to effective business partnering. Instead, the mindset of the Finance business partner has a major impact or influence on the effectiveness of business partnering strategy.