Who are the business partners? The term business partner has become increasingly common Revenue to describe a more collaborative, enabling and supportive In companies with higher revenues, there is a higher incidence relationship between finance and other functional areas of of a business partnering relationship. Fifty-six percent of the business. Business partnering is not universal — indeed, business partners work in companies with more than US$1b companies that have established this model between finance and annual revenue. the supply chain are still in the minority. Among our respondents, Chart 5 26% of finance executives and 21% of supply chain executives What is your company’s annual revenues in US$ (%)? say that the CFO’s contribution to the supply chain is primarily based around an enabling, collaborative, business partnering role. 55% of finance executives and 46% of supply chain executives say that the CFO’s contribution to the supply chain is 56 47 44 53 primarily based around a traditional finance role. The remainder considers they strike a balance between the two. Chart 4 More than US$1b US$100m — US$1b Where on the spectrum from 1 to 5 (see legend below) would you place your relationship with your CFO/ head of supply chain (%)? Business partnering Traditional Finance Growth 15 40 20 19 7 Companies that have a business partnering model in place tend to have higher EBITDA growth. Chart 6 Supply How has your company’s EBITDA changed over the past chain 12 months? 20 26 33 18 3 % 30 1. Primarily a relationship based around a traditional finance role 25 20 15 5. Primarily a relationship based around a more enabling, collaborative 10 "business partnering" role 5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20 Over 20 10–20 5–10 1–5 No 1–5 5–10 10–20 Over 20 change Increase Decrease Business partnering Traditional 12 Partnering for performance Part 1: the CFO and the supply chain