Speaker 0
Welcome to CFO four point o, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly, moving from cost controller to strategic visionary. And with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition to win at work, drive your career forwards, and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Monroe, managing director of ITAS, a financial transformation consultancy, as she interviews key experts to give you real world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people, and data. Welcome to CFO four point o, the future of finance. Speaker 1
So hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of CFO four point o. So with me today is Ollie Deacon, who is the founder of of Oliver Deacon, coaching. And he is actually gonna talk to us not about necessarily coaching itself, but actually about what his view on the future of finance. And this is a really exciting topic because I touched on it in a few different conversations, and, actually, I was really excited when I, saw some of, Ollie's thoughts, and I'm really keen to get to. But before we do, before I get too excited about what finance is gonna look like, let's let's learn a little bit more about you, Wally. So tell us a little bit about your background. Where have you come from? Because it's it's it's it's an interesting history, isn't it? Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks, Hannah. Yes. Yes. So, it'll be interesting to talk about what I what I... We'll get to what I do now, but I I started off probably like many folks really in a very similar way. So left university, went to Deloitte, did my qualification, same as everybody else. I left on my qualification day. I I started off in tax, and tax in the end, you know, it was great, but I decided not me. And so I went off into industry, and I did most of the jobs in finance in about seven years. I was very lucky. I joined, Carpet and Warehouse, and it was a very, at the time, still very fast growing organization, a lot of opportunity to do different things. And I found that by fixing problems, my boss gave me a lot of opportunity to do a lot of different things. So I did, I think, seven jobs in six years then. Then I left there, went to Skype, which had just been acquired by Microsoft. So I really... I experienced there what it was to start up in a very, startup environment, scale up environment, and then transitioned to being this corporate. Moved over to the US as part of that and, became a finance director at Microsoft in Seattle, which is where kind of, I spent the last few years within an actual real finance job, if you like. So my last my last role there, I was a finance director for kind of a four and a half billion dollar p and l. It's kind of about six, eight percent or something from Microsoft's profit at the time. And, I worked with business partners, lots of teams, thought about strategy, about a lot of numbers, where where the business was going to. And that was great, and I really enjoyed that. But I had a realization. Can I talk a little bit about how I kinda transitioned into what I'm doing now? Speaker 1
Yeah. Because it it sounds like that was a real turning point of view. Speaker 2
Yeah. It was, it it was interesting. I I was... Got to this position in my career, and I was like, it's been great. I've had this really quick progression in many ways up to this point. And I was looking around me, what the next ten years looked like a lot of similar things in many ways. More of the same, bigger numbers, bigger job. But I found that where I was adding a lot of value that other people weren't necessarily doing, my peers at the same level, was in thinking about how finance was evolving rather than spending all day in the job of finance, kind of stepping back and thinking a bit more about what is... How will finance evolve into the future? How can we shape that finance structure of the future? What is it to change the culture of an organization? What is it to change the skill sets and how people think about it and what they're doing and and kinda shift these things? And I realized I was kinda the only person thinking about that at my level. Obviously, the CFO was thinking about that, some of her directs, but at a more junior kind of finance director level, there weren't a lot of us thinking about that in that way. And so, around that time, I stopped doing my coaching qualifications, which was quite... It was quite in-depth. It took about eighteen months. It was quite a big kinda thing to do, while I was in the US. And then, kinda moved back here to the UK and and and into what I'm doing now. And I decided actually to... I... I'd rather be doing this full time and helping other finance teams to go on this journey as Speaker 1
well. Yeah. And and I can I just say, I loved how you described your entry into Microsoft as your first real job, right, after all of that time in finance? And it's it's great. Obviously, you worked... Because there is such a difference, isn't there, in the in the Skype style, certainly where it used to be versus that big Microsoft, that big corporate engine and being, being part of that that wheel. So some some big contrast there. So, I love the the the the way that you came to that realization because I think we don't talk enough about where... What finance is gonna look like in the next few years. Because I I... And my personal opinion, and I'd love to get you all taken this, Ollie, is that it's it's not a ten year view. We are talking, you know, a couple of years before we start to see this new version of finance start to materialize and develop. And, actually, in some organizations, I'm starting to see it now, which is quite exciting. So so tell us a little bit about your view about the pace of change that you're seeing and feeling with Speaker 2
if I'm I I mean, so about three years ago when I started spending a lot of time talking about this, I've I've been saying over time, you know, my big opening statement is that sixty percent of the jobs in finance today aren't gonna exist in ten years' time. And I think that the stat that I would lay on top of that is that actually of those sixty percent of people, about one in ten of them are even aware that this change is coming. And so, basically, about half of people in finance today have no real idea about the scale of impact to change their jobs. Now when I started this three years ago, people are like, really? Are we really gonna see this? Haven't we been saying this for a long time? Is it really gonna happen in that way? You know, all well and good. You came to Microsoft. Of course, these things are happening there. Are we really gonna be seeing this in our organization? We've been talking about technology, and I've been saying these are the things that are gonna come. People are like, yeah, I'm not sure. But I think the last six months, we've really seen that. It's it's... There's been a step change in how that's happening. We are really starting to see those changes come through. So, yes, I I would say in the next two to three years, we're gonna see finance functions evolving quite... Really quite rapidly, depending on the key factors. Speaker 1
Yeah. And and I and I think it's interesting your perspective of, you know, people have this perspective that it's a big company change. Right? And actually what I find really interesting is that it's already starting to be seen even at the mid and the small level. Like, it's no... Like, it used to be that all the cool toys, and I'm gonna use that phrase, were all the... In the realms of enterprise. And then at some point Yeah. Someone will figure out how to do it cheaper for the to the mid and the lower markets. But, actually, those smaller engines and technologies and and even legislation is driving a much more, balanced ecosystem of technology, I think, across all sides of organizations. Speaker 2
I mean, they tend to be more car first at that level. You know, or or it's it's it's possible that they can get there in some respects faster than some huge enterprise that, you know, has to go through a huge ERP transformation in order to get there. But, yeah, absolutely. We're seeing that now. It's much more, you know, progress is across the board or or at least the option is there for for... To progress across the board. Speaker 1
Yeah. And how much of that is that technology is now available in your opinion? Or is it that the people that are using the technology are more technology savvy? Like, how... Where do you So What's driving it? Speaker 2
So I I think that there's a gradual change in what... So in people and their skill sets. I think the big... The thing that's really lacking for me is what what... The thing that is holding most of it back is the... Is leadership and managers' awareness of the latest technology. One of the things that I encourage most of all the leaders, my... Some clients, people I'm working with is really how do you how do you build the habit of understanding the latest technology? I was actually talking to some people about this just this morning, and one of the leaders is saying, like, I I have no idea about data and analytics. Right? And so because of that, they don't know, how... It's it's not that they're ever gonna become an expert in it, but they need to know this is how it can be used. And therefore, I can ask this person and that person to go and solve some problems using it. And, really, that's the challenge for me is that leaders don't know. You know, I... In job descriptions, for example, I would be expecting to see the market leaders in a few areas with... You know, people are asking if I want the skill in x and this and this one, and they're just... It's not in there. They're not in there because managers don't know what those things can do and and that's... And and and and how they can have impact in their... In the business. So I think that's one side of things is that that's gonna maybe continue to be slow. From a technology perspective, I think we've seen a couple of step function changes over the last sort of ten years. I think one was the shift to cloud and the the initial scaling up around that and the ecosystems that have come from cloud in around the accounting space. But then I think the second thing is natural language AI, and The Grove did that in the last six months. I think we're really seeing for the first time a technology, and it's across many industries, but in finance, a true technology that will revolutionize how finance does its work. And I think that, you know, really for the first time, most people who see this can see that what I've been saying over the last three years, they're like, oh, yes. It makes sense. Now I see I see that path of how it's gonna happen. Speaker 1
Yeah. No. Absolutely. And going back to your comment about leaders, I think there's this... A lot of talk around sort of the t shaped, leaders. And and I think one of the challenges is people see technology as a, like, as a as a... An option, as a skill set versus a basic competency that every leader in finance should have. So, you know, the... You know, it's it's not a speciality. You might bring someone in to do a big transformation, and that for me is a speciality. Right? But, fundamentally, understanding the capabilities of technology should be called competency. And and I think that's... Again, it's it's why, I... When I speak to to to to customers, etcetera, I'm like, well, when's the last time you sat down with your team and reviewed what you're using and how you're using it? Because... And I and I and I talk a lot about this at the moment. Actually, I think I'm doing I'm doing a presentation on this. It's about doing more with less because we very often have access to the technology already. Mhmm. Or at some point, we're we're using some of it. Right? We might not be using it to its full capacity, capability. But I think one of the challenges is people, firstly, don't know what it could do. What it should do, I guess, is the other thing. Mhmm. And very often, they don't even know they've got it, which, I think, that worries me more than anything. Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And and I I think, you know, leaders are just... We saw this. So, Microsoft, for example, a great a great case study of this, machine learning. So Microsoft builds the capability to do machine learning stuff in general across all different areas. And, lots of people in finance started going to learn how to do it, and it was amazing. And they started building these skills great, and the leaders weren't deploying them. They didn't know how. Okay. Some of my teams just gone and spent a couple of weeks figuring out how to do that, but the leaders weren't clear how to go and use that. And so it became two different streams of learning. During the peak... So at an analyst level was the actual technical thing of machine learning, how to use machine learning. And then there was a separate work, kind of learning stream of machine learning for leaders. And it would teach them how how it can be used, when it can be used, and and where it can't be used. And these are when you... These are the types of problems that you should be getting your team to solve on. And, obviously, it's a much shorter course, but it's the sort of thing that enables leaders to be able to go and do that. So, again, any... Leads getting that sort of opportunity to go and understand technology, how it can be used, all all those kind of things, I think, really key. Speaker 1
I think it's a really interesting point. It's almost the strategic use of technology, isn't it? It's the strategic visibility of what it... Like you say, what kind of problems it can solve, where to use it, where not to use it. I think it's also an interesting piece, and actually, yeah, understanding, what new tools are out there. And, yeah, I might have to... That's a really great suggestion. I'm gonna... Might print that idea one of my transformation lives is actually what, you know, what technology is out there and what what can it do at a top level because... Yeah. And when we talked about this before the podcast, but I do try not to talk about specific technologies because I think it can distract from the conversation. But there is... There's there's a lot of tools in different categories out there that can be used. So so so we don't get started with technology, let's talk about how finance is going to change. So talk us through what you... How you see finance transition. Let's just talk in maybe the next one to three years, and then we'll talk five to ten if that's alright. Speaker 2
Yeah. So the the immediate change that I see happening is that we're going to see, transformation become easier. The the trends that I'm seeing now is that more teams are starting to invest a small percentage of their headcount into transformation specific roles. So let's say you've got a team of thirty to fifty in your finance team. One of those headcounts will be entirely geared towards transformation role. Now this isn't everywhere, but it isn't ubiquitous by any means, but it's certainly... Organizations that are making that investment are seeing significantly faster, speed of change in organizations. So that's the first thing. Transformation driven by a person in the team who's focused entirely on that. They don't have to be somebody who's a change specialist, but they have to be somebody who's very passionate about driving change. And it almost is that person zero on the team to really think about that. The the second space that I see that's having a lot of change is is data analytics. This is kind of obvious. Right? But the the growth of all of these different tools and technologies, all kinds of things here, organically, there's starting to be a lot of sort of change in that. People are starting to play with those tools a lot more to figure out what they can do. And then the third area for me is finance business partnering. And, traditionally, this is a space where lots of people say I'm a finance business partner, but in reality, they're just an accountant who talks to the business a lot. And those are two very, very different things. So for me, kind of finance business partnering, a lot of folks are really starting to understand the nontechnical skills that are required to become great at that and investing into that space. And so I think those kind of transformation, data and analytics, to finance business partnering in in the... In one to three are are where we're gonna see some of the biggest changes. Speaker 1
And so I think I'd love to dial back to what you see as transformation. Right? Because I've heard so many definitions, right, of transformation. Speaker 1
And you said it's not somebody that's skilled at change. So tell us what you mean by people in transformation. Speaker 2
And when I say skill that change, I mean, they're not they're not like a kinda ex McKinsey consultant or they haven't spent twenty five years as a project manager. They need to have some change skills. Right? You can't just turn up and make it all up. But, you know, you understand a little bit of sort of Six Sigma or, you know, how agile works or, you know, a little bit of that. But the main thing is having somebody who's who's headspace on the team is not I have to do month end, month end, forecast, budget, month end, month end. Right? That that thing is always how we're driving continuous improvement. So for me, transformation starts with always thinking about how do we do this better, better, better. Which of our processes could we do in a better way? How could we use, you know, this tool that's... That most people know how to use just not that well? How can we use that more in this space? Where's the opportunity for that? Somebody... When people start to get slowing down with the change that they're the person who picks it all back up again and keeps everybody to track. They're they're driving a lot of that accountability. And what I see is that, like, no, I probably worked with three or four organizations that have a headcount dedicated to that, step function change in the speed of how quickly they're able to make impact is is night and day before and after having that person enroll.
Speaker 1
It's having that person dedicated to non day to day work, isn't it? That's that's the point. And and I've seen it. I've... I actually echo that. That's why I was quite, wanted to clarify it because I've seen BAs. So I've seen a lot of people hiring the internal BAs, so they have a permanent person. I think the challenge you get with that is that if they haven't got a finance background, sometimes they just don't get it.
Speaker 1
I've seen some very good BAs actually that haven't had a finance background, but I've also seen some challenges there. Yep. I've seen I've seen the title finance system manager, and I think as long as they're not a techie and they understand process, that's a really good
Speaker 1
That's a really interesting role. Could... But you've... Again, it's about the person in that role. And so, you know, actually having... So so I saw a few interesting faces as we were talking through that. So for those on the podcast that are watching this on video, so give us your thoughts. Right? You
Speaker 2
know, because we,
Speaker 1
have to be really important to that.
Speaker 2
Right. And BA, I... I'm not sure that's it. The core for me is that you deeply understand finance. And more than that Yeah. Is that you care. Right? The person has to have a passion for change. In most Yeah. Organizations that I work with is more than kind of financing to more than about twenty people. You can see it within half an hour of working with them. There's somebody who really cares and is really excited and really interested. I think enabling that person to drive that change is hugely beneficial. And so actually often, for many teams, they'll have that person already there. And the investment that's made is that person needs to learn some of the basic change management skills. Again, I I I don't think they have to go away and train... Be trained for three years. I I think it's, you know, it's a sort of three month program of I need to know how to make a good plan. I need to know how change happens and how to manage that. Right? It's it's some of those things because the main thing is just having that that resource dedicated to, to putting that time and energy in.
Speaker 1
So... And I think it's really interesting that your reaction to BA was that they wouldn't be that person. Right? So I I would... I've I've been lucky enough. Maybe it's just that I've been super lucky, right, to have VAs that have worked in finance before. And it's certainly... We we look forward. Like, when we find consultants, I look for people that have been a finance manager that have, worked in finance or have been in a... I've had ex accountants, etcetera. And I and I think what's really interesting is that more and more people that have worked in finance at some point are now thinking, actually, I love the concept of accounting, and I love the I love the numbers aspect, but I don't really want to manage debits and credits for the rest of my life. I don't want to be a finance business partner. Where can I go? And that's where technology and process change sits really lovely in that transformation space in my personal
Speaker 2
It's amazing. Yeah. I I agree. It's it's... To me, the one of the the two... For me, one of the two biggest expanding roles over the next ten years in finance aside from the data analytics things you'd expect is the sort of transformation. You you could call them a business analyst in in in many ways. I think that that might put sort of more finance generalists off a little bit. You know, I think more thinking about them being a finance transformation person sounds a bit more
Speaker 1
It's a bit more exciting. I must say I see myself as a transformation consultant. I don't see myself as a, a software or a a business analyst. Right? So I completely understand that. But I think it's also important to know where people could see and then get inspiration from people that are doing those kind of roles because I would... If if I was going into a financial transformation, I would want to look at resources around that business analysts would consume because that that skill set, that ability to look at a problem, understand use cases, understand, you know, scenarios is really valuable to transformation consultants. I know I'm a consultant. Transformation people Yes. Going into that space. And I think that's the point, isn't it? A transformation needs to be a change a change supporter. I'm not a use manager, a change supporter. They need to understand technology. They need to understand process. They need to understand, finance as well. And, you know, we've got some big shoes to fill there.
Speaker 2
Yes. It's a lot. It it it it is a lot. And I think, for for me, it's been interesting since I've been on this journey, kinda leaving Microsoft coming off on... It'll be four years in September. Yeah. And the way that I've been approaching the last few years is I find I find something that's not working very well in the sort of UK finance industry area and then try and solve for that. So in the beginning, it was like nobody had this sort of really clear concise vision of where the future of finance is going, so I've put something together for that. Next up was, there wasn't any... I I couldn't see anything out there. I went around and asked lots of people for training around a couple of sort of software programs that people in in general should be using some kind of software on this. There was just nothing that was relevant, so built that. The the big thing that I see at the moment is there is nothing that I can see out there that's what... That's sort of very broad that teaches finance people how to do transformation. And so for me, that's the next big thing is how building a transformation program that teaches people over, let's say, I don't know, five to ten sort of workshop style things. What what are all the fundamental tools that you need to be able to run transformation? Everything you need nothing more. Right? That's that's the difficult part. Pragmatically, how do you... Right. You can get all the theory. You can read a hundred books. But, actually, what people really need... What I've seen over the last few years, what people really need is some tools that you can go away and apply immediately in your situation. I don't really see anything out there at the moment that does that. You can go and do all the kind of leads at Sigma stuff or any of the big sort of kind, you know, change management programs, but they're not geared towards finance specifically. And so, again, I think that's a gap out there at the moment. May... Maybe you've seen something, but, like, I I... For me, I think that's still a gap.
Speaker 1
I I completely agree. There is no formalized training program. So I've actually taken a lot of the stuff that I'd use with my consultants when I'm training junior consultants. I... That's why I started doing my financial transformation for the exact reason. Right? Is because there was no one talking about it. So a lot of technology vendors will come in and they'll say, right. This technology, this is how you use it. Well, it won't spend the time on. It's actually spending time saying, well, tell me what is your month end process? Map out your timeline. Where are your problems? Chunk it down. Go through all of those. And that's exactly... I I couldn't agree with you more, Annie. And I must admit, I am trying to do my bit to support this. But I think the more of us are talking about this and creating education... Because it isn't rocket science when you know it, and it all sounds really simple. Some say, that's that easy. You know, why why aren't we doing that? But until somebody says it to you, you know, and I think finance is a really specific use case.
Speaker 2
And and there are so many, you know, space in finance where if we just map the process, we look to what the process is, how could it be better Yeah. Mapped it, redesigned it, trained everybody on how to do it differently. Right? That in itself, what an incredible skill set, and it's not like... You know, if I was saying to you, you need to learn an entire new type of data science. For many finance people, that's completely out of reach for them. But learning how to make process better is probably open to ninety five percent of people working in finance so that if you can do processes in finance, you can probably improve processes in finance. And so I, you know, I think to me that's... A lot of those a lot of those, roles that potentially are going away within finance teams and people in those... Some of those roles who've been doing it for quite a long time might say, where does where does my future lie? So a lot of those folks, I think, about actually starting to develop some of those process improvement skills because I think there will still be lots of opportunities over the next ten to twenty years in and around host improvement.
Speaker 1
Completely agree with you, to be fair, Ali. I think you and I, probably... It's literally singing from the same hinter without even realizing it. I... And I... Do you know what I find fascinating? I think one of the danger... And and this is always the challenge I find when I go into existing sites or get involved in your existing implementations is that there is a tendency that people hand stuff to finance. And actually finance needs to be getting better at... No. Don't teach me to fish. Sorry. Don't teach... No. Don't give me the fish. Teach me how to fish. Teach me how to improve my process. Talk to me about how you're... Take us through the journey versus serving me with a ERP that is designed for my use right now. Yeah. This is actually saying to me, how do we how do we continuously develop our systems? How do we not... Not think it's one big implementation? How do we have this continuous, approach to phasing and improvement, etcetera, so that we we go on a journey. It's not a single project. Anyway, I I got... You've got me on the soapbox now, Ollie. Everyone knows how dangerous that is listening to this. So, and we have got very distracted, and I I do have a tendency to do that because it's lovely to speak to somebody that's so passionate about transformation, as as I am. So so we talked about one to three years. Right? So tell me about sort of three to ten years. So... Because we've got a short wave of this is coming now, but then we've got a much bigger wave coming behind it, haven't we?
Speaker 2
And so how I think about this at the moment, fundamentally, the way the way that I think about any... Your average finance team, how it's structured. In general, I would think about fifty percent of any finance team at the moment is kind of technical people. So they're doing things like fin ops, accounting, general audit, treasury, tax, like, all of that kind of, sort of tech... Various technical roles. My sense is that those roles as they stand today will probably be HARP over the next ten years, And that's really gonna be driven by automation, AI, a lot of the latest technology. Controller roles. So this is people who close the books and create the numbers every month, and I kind of... I probably include group, sort of functions in there as well. And that's about twenty percent of finance organizations at the moment. Again, I see that probably halving in size as as well with technology. The risk is gonna be... I do see, we've talked a lot there about transformation in those kind of, transformation roles. I do see this... Those... That controller space is actually the home of transformation. And so I I actually would say that that twenty percent goes down to ten, but then actually grows probably back up to about fifteen percent based on, the sort of... I think the whole five percentage points of people will be in and around sort of helping continuous improvement and and and sort of change there. FP and A makes up those sort of big remaining chunk of that, but core sort of finance folks in and around FP and A. FP and A, I think, will grow, probably, you know, sort of from kinda course to maybe to about a third of finance areas. And, there's gonna be a big change, though. Today, FP and A, despite sort of planning being a big part of the title of what they're meant to be doing, actually very backwards looking in what they do. Even when they were forecasting, we're actually just mostly looking backwards and drawing a little line forwards. In in the future, I see FP and A being genuinely forward looking. Really very... You know, the the machines are gonna do a lot of the backwards looking. FP and A is gonna be very much about what's gonna happen next, and that skill set will be very different. So instead of just analyzing looking backwards, it'll be much more about what's gonna happen going forward and how we have conversations with the business about that. For any of you who are following along with the math here, you'll be thinking, wow. You've created quite a gap here in finance, Ollie. What's what's gonna fill that gap? And the gap there is data and AI. And so there's about twenty percentage points. I would expect about kind of... Of that overall finance headcount, I don't actually see in a lot of organizations overall finance headcount shrinking with one exception, and that is where if you've got particularly bloated APAR function. So for example, I was talking to an organization probably about eighteen months ago, and they had about two hundred finance people of which a hundred and forty were in AP. Imagine a two hundred person finance organization, a hundred and forty in AP. So, obviously, they have a huge change to go from there. But once they kinda right size back down to more the numbers I've been talking about, then then it's unlikely, right, that the the finance team shrinks much beyond that. We just start to reallocate resources. And so within that, I I see that that... But the new space, that new area will be data and AI. And that's gonna be a lot of folks really thinking about data science and a lot of the new technologies that are coming in. Now a question that I... I'm always asked is, okay, does that mean I'm gonna be retraining? Honestly, probably not. I I see that as sort of very likely to be people coming in from other disciplines and starting to have new folks coming in. Obviously, there will be some some people in finance who are very kind of math... Statistically orientated that are gonna lean over into that. I'm I'm talking to a lot of, prequalification, new qual people who are who are making that that journey ready, but I really see that that might might be other people coming in. It's also possible that that does not report into the CFO, but actually sits under the CIO, the CMO, kinda other parts in the organization. But finance will be really core to how it operates, and be probably one of the biggest customers of that. The the other thing that I see is, one of the main parts, the core role of finance will be. You'll have this massive data team in your company and then the rest of the business. I see finance sitting right in the middle of those two things. The kind of... The finance function will become the rosette stone between the rest of the business and data scientists. Having spent a whole bunch of time working with data scientists at Microsoft, I have this hand experience of how you cannot put data scientists directly in contact with most business people because it's just it's chaos. Right? It just doesn't... They're just speaking completely different languages. And what I find that finance people are able to do is speak both business and the fundamentals of data science where they can take a business problem, and they can reframe it using data science language without having to do the actual work by saying this is the framed problem. The output comes back out the data science team, and the finance organization is able to frame that in a way that the business can actually do something. They have the credibility. They have the relationships, and they have the language to be able to get the business to do what they want with it. And so that's, again, how I see the finance team evolving into the future.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I think any of us that have worked in tech and with developers know exactly what you mean. Mhmm. Because I think developers and data scientists are of the same ilk in terms of their their approach. You know, they... And and it's... To be fair, there's always an exception to the rule.
Speaker 2
Of course. Of course.
Speaker 1
But those exceptions to the rule tend to be leading the teams of data scientists and developers not, being there. And I and I think it's a really good observation about where data is. So I think there is actually a danger. So that we let data analytics move out of finance. So for me, if... Because otherwise, what will happen is if we move it completely out and we don't insert that business partnering layer, the CIO will create it. Yes. And they won't have that finance perspective in there. And I think that's quite dangerous personally in terms of how we build out the future of, you know, especially large organizations from a from a finance perspective?
Speaker 2
I'm sure, Hannah, you undoubtedly will think about this in the exact same way as I do, but there's one particular reason why finance is so well positioned to be the kind of owner of that, and that is just the way that we think about data. Specifically, in finance, once a number is the number, it's the number. Right? We are very clear that if you wanna change something, there is a very finite number of ways that you can do that and a very clear set of processes you would have to go through, which are not easy to go through if you want to restate a number. Right? And and those things whereas... I... I've worked with loads of software engineers who just say, actually, that metric doesn't work for us anymore. There's a new metric. Right? And that's fine. We'll just change the definition of the metric. And it's okay. That's fine for them to do because it works. But finance understands how and when and why we should change how data works and operates. And I think with that rigor, we are in a much better place to to sort of look and and sit over. We're we're just so used... We're not... We don't even realize how how used we are to to sort of working in this way. And so I think the natural place for it to be, really kinda sits within the balance function.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I think the fact that we are already used to working with all teams around business performance. Right? And it's not just about that team's performance because there is a danger. Again, if it sits in one particular team, you know, there's a there's a skew in a way about how that data is perceived because we all know the data is, you know, and the results are in the eye of the beholder. So you can do a lot with data. Whether you should or you shouldn't is a whole different conversation. And I think finance is used to being regulated. It's used to being held to high standards and used to being kicked when those high standards aren't met. Yeah. And I don't think that's necessarily true for the other teams in Correct. In the organization.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Ex... Exactly. I completely agree.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I think we we are both completely on the same page. There is no arguing on this podcast. This is very much Yeah.
Speaker 2
I hope that we still like hearing two people agreeing vehemently on a podcast. So that's good.
Speaker 1
I'm I'm trying to try to think, can I look at, you know, ask a question that may be a little bit, anything, but I think we're we're both perfectly in line with that? So I I think the question a lot of leaders are saying is, right, okay. You know, Ollie, this is coming. I I can see why it's coming. I can... I now know when it's coming. But how do we how do we enable our existing teams? How do we build the teams of the future so that we can actually deliver on this, you know... I'm gonna Google it the Nirvana because, actually, I think it's really exciting for finance to have this opportunity.
Speaker 2
And I think, for me, there are two key areas. Right? There's there's all these amazing skills that finance has to have, and it's been true for a long time. Right? We need to know our international accounting standards and our debits and credits and blah blah blah, all this kind of stuff. There are two key areas of skills that I think, finance leaders really need to think about how we're investing in these in these areas. So at at at the high level, how I think about this is we need to understand, first of all, what is the future gonna look like? Hopefully, we've helped with that a little bit today, but what is the future gonna look like? Where are we today? What's our gap? Once we understand what that gap is, what are the skills that we need to take our our teams on this journey together? We'll talk about that in a moment. And then finally, we actually need to give what's different about the past because it's not enough to just go and qualify some people. Right. We actually need people to start having impact and using the skills that they're learning on a regular basis. And so, that's not something I think in the past that people had to do in quite the same way. If you went out, you know, twenty five, thirty years ago, if you want an amazing course and you came back and you're the only person who knew that stuff, that was really valuable. But that's not the case anymore because everything... All information is to hand immediately, and so it's about once you learn something and you have impact. So in terms of the actual areas that I think about where where we need to learn, there are two core different areas. The first, I would pull under the bracket of technical. Under technical, so the three key things. One is data science. So understanding, what data science is, how it works, big data programming languages, machine learning, and AI. There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that finance teams might start getting into. A lot of junior finance folks that I know are going into various certification processes in that and starting to learn a bunch of those things. Outside of that, it's a bit lighter. So general analytics and data presentation. So these are using much more of the common tools that most of us have got available to us already in the workplace. They kinda sit on top of the spreadsheets that we're all used to using already, but really understanding what analytics and data presentation is and getting into that. And then the final one that I would think about, we haven't talked about that too much today, but RPA, robotic process automation, is a slightly more controversial topic for various reasons. Just in very short is because some people believe that the amount of time you put into it, like, it takes as much time to maintain it as it is to actually do it. But for a lot of folks who can get it to work, RPA is great. We were using it at Microsoft in some space. It was really good. But... So so actually having some folks on the team who understand how to use RPA. Anyone who's like, Ollie, what is RPA? I like to think about it as a macro for anything. It's a... It's an Excel macro for anything. It's a macro for
Speaker 1
That is one of the best descriptions I've heard because I I talk a lot about, you know, RPA layers and, like, I've seen loads of different tools, but that's a really good way of describing it. Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 2
Most finance folks are quite clear about what macro is. So... But it's a macro for anything. Right? So you can record what you're doing, and it will run it over and over and over again. So, again, having somebody in your organization, I I talk about people and they're like, wow. RPA. Cool. I... You know? And and having somebody in your organization who cares about that, who's trying it, who experiments with it, all those kind of things. So that's one thing. That's that's the three key areas of technical stuff. State... We talked about data science, data and analytics, then RPA. Then the second thing is in space of nontechnical. So let less, I I don't wanna call it soft skills necessarily, but there's kind of, like, less technical skills. And, again, three big areas here. The first of which is finance business partnering. And we talked about this a couple of times already, but here, for me, it's the skills of communication. Right? Getting messages across to people, building relationships, presenting and influencing, actually telling stories in a way that engages other people by bringing numbers to life. There's this whole space of finance business partnering that, traditionally, we haven't seen organizations investing in. People just expect to kind of figure it out, but there is best in class understanding out there. And so that means... Or is is a really big thing. The second thing is leadership and management. I still cannot believe how many people I talk to who've been managers for years and I say, you know, what kind of management training do you have? Nothing. Imagine... I'm sure you talk about this all the time on here, but, like, imagine something that important and giving no one any training in it. So management is a huge thing, but the other thing is leadership. Right? Leadership without authority. Change is gonna come from every single level in our organization, and we're gonna need leaders at every level. And that is you're not gonna have... You you aren't in control of these people, but you have to lead on the change. And so we're gonna need to develop, leadership skills at all levels of our organization. I think that's something... You know, I hear a lot of people saying, oh, my junior people don't take enough ownership. They don't, you know, they're not, like, driving these things enough. But, actually, what it is is leadership skills, and so training folks on leadership skills. And then the final one is personal effectiveness. Right? You could say, well, that's been true for all time. But we're about to see something different for the very first time in finance. And that is when the machines are doing all the processes, we're suddenly gonna find that in a month, we're no longer spending the first six working days of the month doing one thing and the next two working days doing another, and then the next doing this and having two days to do random amount of projects. We're gonna have twenty five days of the month to do value add work for the business, Have much more time to play with, much less structure and rhythm. So finance people are really gonna have to start developing personal effectiveness skills of how they manage their own time. So thinking about what do you do with your day? When do you structure your energy? Like, how do you make sure that across your week, you're focused on the right priorities and so that we're not just replacing all the processes of the past with busy work of the future, but that we're having real impact. So that was finance business partnering skills, management leadership, personal effectiveness. So I think that's the big areas to invest in.
Speaker 1
I love that as well because... And and I don't think it's a finance piece. Right? I think in the UK... And and, again, I'd be interested. I was reading some stats about this, but, you know, we don't invest in management leadership training. We, you know, don't... And the government has all these programs because there is a noticeable gap in luck. Right? If you think we have... We're really good at putting technical competencies out there. What we're really bad at, even from a school level, is building out soft skill capabilities
Speaker 1
And those nontechnical skill sets. And the one I would just say is that I'm not... I may have missed it. Right? It might be snuck into one of those. I do feel like finance really needs to understand process, and personal resilience. Right? Because we are about to hit probably... I think finance is gonna be changed more than any other in, you know, aspect of the business in the next five years. And I think that ability to to be able to, you know, cope with the volume of change and the resilience, but also be able to drive that through process engineering is something we have to we have to see more of in in finance.
Speaker 2
I love those ones. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1
Fabulous. Well, I I... Literally, I wanna keep going. I wanna keep asking you questions, but I will stick to my self imposed, you know, force... A forty minute limit. And for the... You know, for those listening, right, if you have any feedback on, should I just keep going on these podcasts when I get to... Because if we're just starting to get into the the nitty gritty, then let me know. I do try to keep it the length of a good dog walk so that you can listen and put or I think of a reasonable commute is maybe the other way to look at it. But, Ollie, it's been a genuine pleasure, and I'm hoping I might be able to drag you back on to really dig
Speaker 2
That'd be great. Yeah. Let's let's do this. Let's pick up for part two for sure. Yes. If people like to see you get some people writing in saying, oh, it was interesting. I'd like to hear some more of that. Then, yeah, I'd love to come on back.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. So there you go, audience. Right? The future of part two of this podcast is in your hands.
Speaker 1
Please do reach out to myself. You know, I had... We've... Actually, what I've been really excited to hear is we've had loads of people starting to message about the podcast, and I'm actually starting to hear from individuals. So if you have enjoyed this podcast, you wanna hear all they come back on to talk about part two about how do we actually make that transition? How do we support our two... Teams through this and pick his brains on some... Maybe some coaching techniques and some and some of those things, then, you know, reach out to us. So... But before we finish, Ollie, what are your top tips for those that are thinking about where their team's gonna be in five years? What are the key things that they need to start thinking about?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I think the first thing is, how do you encourage the team to really start taking on these new things? What is that, kind of... How do you how do you create that culture? I think the first... The... A tip. I I like to be, I think, probably the same with you, Hannah. I like to give some pragmatic tips and advice on that you can actually do. So I think one of the main things for me would be, getting your teams to do a bit of the lunch and learn. Right? If somebody goes out on the team and learns something, get them to come back and tell the rest of the team about it. If you voluntold people to go and do that, that's not great. But if you've got somebody who's going away and learning it and saying, hey. There's loads of recognition. We're gonna... It's gonna be amazing. We'd love you to just come and talk to the team about it for twenty, thirty minutes. We'll give some... Cut some pizzas out, etcetera. Have some have some that. So that's one thing. The second thing is making sure that the team is having real impact to something. So giving people the opportunity. Here is a problem that can be solved with x or y new technology. Right? Learn about it and actually, you know, encouraging people, rewarding and recognizing people doing something with that. The final thing that I'd recommend folks to do, if you're not sure about, like, what is what is... What are people looking for or what are the skills, what's happening out there, A really quick and easy way to do this is to go and look at a bunch of job descriptions on LinkedIn. So not focusing in on any one specific job, but basically skim reading. Right? Because ninety percent of most job description is not helpful. But if you skim read about twenty, thirty job descriptions in ten minutes, you will start to see themes of the things that are coming up that people are looking for. And what a lot of my clients realize when they do this is, I thought I knew most of what's going on, but, actually, they're asking for a bunch of things I haven't even thought about. And so it's a really quick and easy way to see. Right? It's like, it's the snapshot in time of what the market in general is looking for. And so, again, don't get home... Not... Don't focus in any one particular job, but just trying to take a little look every now and then. What are people asking for? Because it can give you some tips and highlights and maybe some of the things in your organization that you might be missing.
Speaker 1
Love those. Some fabulous tips, Ollie. And I love... Yes. As you said before, we love pragmatic and useful tips. So, some great points for people to go with. So, Ollie, I can genuinely say this has been an absolutely fabulous podcast. It's been so wonderful to to to have you on, and thank you for your enthusiasm and passion for for what's coming next because I think there's a lot... It's sometimes hard to see that that what is coming in a good light because there is such a big change, but it's wonderful to see somebody talk about it so well and also be so passionate about, you know, and how exciting it's gonna be. So thank you, Ollie.
Speaker 1
Brilliant. So if any of you... I'm sure there's gonna be a couple of our podcast listeners that want to find out more about what you can do and how you can help your money. So if they wanna find you, where is the best place to go, and where should they look?
Speaker 2
So, first thing is I would say sign up for my newsletter on my website. Send one newsletter a month with three interesting things. So I really want it to be pragmatic, useful. So sign up on, my, website, which is olivideacon coaching, dot com. So sign up there. Also, check me out on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me. Follow me on, LinkedIn, whatever works for you. Again, I post fairly regularly online in terms of what I'm thinking about, what I'm seeing. And then finally is, what I... My day job is coaching. I work with finance leaders to think about a lot of these things and work through them. And coaching for me is a combination of, you know, pure coaching, mentoring, consulting, bringing all those different things together. So, again, if you... If you're interested in more about what that means with me, you can, get in touch through my website or through LinkedIn.
Speaker 1
Amazing. And for anyone that is listening, don't worry. You don't have to look very hard for these links. We'll put them all in the show notes. It's super easy to find Ollie. And a massive thank you on behalf of all of our podcast listeners, Ollie. It's been fabulous having
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3
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