Collaboration key to business success

Face-to-face interactions play an important role in conducting business.

However, many organisations have very large teams and operations worldwide, so it’s just not possible to limit all collaboration to personal meetings.

To serve global accounts successfully the organisation needs seamless collaboration across geographies.

Collaboration is a top priority for many key figures in a company’s ‘C-Suite’ - CEOs, CFOs, chief human resources officers (CHROs), chief information officers (CIOs) and chief marketing officers (CMOs) etc. These people have the opportunity to take a key leadership role in developing collaboration, but knowing how to do it in the best way can be a tricky thing.

No two companies are the same but all can agree that effective collaboration, both amongst the C-suite and with external partners is key to driving successful innovation and growth.

According to research by the ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) in a report titled ‘CFOs and the C-Suite – focusing on effective collaboration’, there are a number of key values business leaders can adopt as they are at the core of successful collaboration.

In addition to their core financial and accounting expertise, financial business partners need to be able to act like business entrepreneurs, proactively working with the organisation and taking the initiative to identify issues where finance can provide added value.

This means that they need a deep understanding of the value drivers within their organisation. Financial business partners must also be able to communicate clearly, explaining financial analysis in simple terms to business leaders. Similarly, influencing and conflict resolution skills are important for winning the support of internal stakeholders.

Effective collaboration isn’t without its obstacles. The challenges posed by sustainability, digitalisation and the fastchanging macro-economic environment will require CFOs to mitigate risk without inhibiting innovation, master communication and influencing skills, help unite teams around well-defined goals, and ensure that the finance function provides strategic value to the rest of the business.

Leaders often mistake cooperation for collaboration. Most executives display friendly, collegial, cooperative behaviour but collaboration goes way beyond that. It requires people to unite with a common goal/purpose and to commit to a clearly defined outcome with clear accountabilities for the participating individuals.

Behavioural change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes conscious effort, as individuals have to leave their ‘comfort zone’, and it takes time. Assessing culture can be difficult because it calls upon a brand new set of skills and requires a multidisciplinary approach. This is where the skills and abilities of the professional accountant can make a real difference.

Trained to evaluate and measure, the accountant needs to be attuned to ensuring that values can be measured and reported internally and externally – after all, what can be measured can be managed, and the accountant is of course adept at ensuring the bottom line adds up.

Another obstacle to effective collaboration is that many C-suites still lack diversity of gender, age, race and, consequently, opinion. A healthy debate and a diversity of opinion are key requirements of successful C-suite collaboration.

CFOs and other senior executives must be mindful to pursue collaboration that goes beyond classical business partnering.

Many of the challenges organisations face require effective enterprise-wide collaboration – and the CFO has a really big role to play, given the wide remit of the finance function.

The question is no longer whether companies, and specifically members of the C-suite, should collaborate internally as well as externally with customers and suppliers, but rather how. It’s important to collaborate in order to thrive and not just merely survive as a business and as leaders.

Collaboration itself is not unfamiliar to business, however only a few companies/individuals manage to do it well. Understanding the need for it is not enough. Effective collaboration often requires a shift in culture, mind-set and behaviour to ensure its strategic value to the rest of the business.” Collaboration is better for everyone involved. Collaboration not only positively impacts the lives of employees at work but also at home. Collaboration is indeed a top priority for many business leaders.