Technology will support us in building FP&A skillset

With the world changing and new technologies being implemented, people in Finance have more room to utilise their time on developing new skills. This is a story about a NatWest Finance journey mixed with personal development piece.

I have been working in NatWest for more than 10 years now. From the day one my roles have been placed somewhere between Finance and Technology however the proportion have been changing over the time. Even though I was studying Finance and Accounting at Warsaw School of Economics, I quickly discovered that I am interested in attending more technical faculties to learn about data warehouses, programming at the same time. I also assigned for Oracle courses and eventually, this led me to postgraduate studies on Big Data on Polish Japanese Academy of Information Technology. Nevertheless, at that time, I treated Finance and IT as two separate areas. Between 2013 and 2015 I was leading the Oracle Data Warehouse implementations in East European and Asian branches of our company where I saw how resistant users were to move from doing the manual work in MS Excel to the new, more automated tools, which calculate huge datasets for them. What was the source of this resilience? On one hand – the reason was coming from the lack of ‘know how’, on the other hand – from the lack of trust to the technology, and finally – from the fear that technology is able to replace manual work done by human beings.

Let’s face the truth – the fear wasn’t unjustified. However, I stand by the thesis that technology will support us, not replace us. It will, however, replace people’s involvement in simple activities, repetitive tasks, visualization, and analysis preparation. It will enable to read the trend, it will even suggest, where to focus on to find the answer we look for. But it all leads to freeing up people’s time and utilising it on more sophisticated tasks like adding a business context and meaning to the numbers and data that is available.

After finishing the implementation described above, I have moved to another area, which evolution I would like to focus on (frankly speaking it simultaneously was my journey!). At first, our responsibilities were more Business Intelligence centred, whereas eventually it changed into Financial Planning & Analysis type of role. What does it mean in practise? For years we were using the tools and systems mainly for data storage and the whole data handling was done offline mainly in MS Excel or MS PowerPoint. Of course, the change hasn’t happened overnight - it has been a long and complex process. Referring to the article Big Data: Challenges and Opportunities in Financial Management published by the Management Unit of University of Warsaw, MS Excel is still the key skill within the Finance division, however there is an increasing importance of technical skills like expertise in Oracle/Microsoft tools used for planning or data visualisation.[1] 

Knowing the pace of change, it is crucial to analyse the key skills required in FP&A roles. It will not come as a surprise when I say it is a combination of financial and technical skills! Let me use the below graph to present the required competencies accurately.[2] The initial step of the journey my team went through (moving from BI to FP&A) is shown using the blue part of the map. Typical work was technical and manual, majority of tasks were related to data handling and analysis. There was little space for Storytelling or influencing the data.

Modern FP&A skillset, which is the model we are much closer to at this point, is based on five key competencies within the team:

• The Architect – technical skills – data modelling in MS Excel, but also using the forecasting tools like EPM, which is an Oracle product used in NatWest.
• The Analyst – analytical skills – data analysis, understanding, spotting trends.
• The Storyteller – financial skills – ability to add the business context to the analysed numbers.
• The Influencer – very important skills for Business Partners, who understand the data and can add the proper story to the financials (referring to the skills above). Once they build a credible relationship, based on the business and data knowledge, with business, they can influence their decisions.
• The Data Scientist – worth to mention, this is more ‘nice to have’ skill within FP&A area (based on the below chart its involvement is smaller than others). In many companies there are Data Science dedicated departments but having basic knowledge within FP&A area enables automating simple tasks by using Python scripts.

Source:https://www.pcdk.pl/index.php/aktualnosci/finanse/item/335-5-kluczowych-kompetencji-fpa [16.12.2022]

Although the theory sounds interesting, the real question is how to gain such various competencies? Firstly, there is a very powerful method called ‘on the job training’, which, in simple words is just – doing the job! As an example – Influencer will be getting up to speed the quickest by getting to know new people from various parts of the company, attending the meetings and by networking. To be perceived as a credible person, Influencer needs a proper business context. The financial results that are published cyclically by many companies are a real treasury of information. Not only they include the numbers, but most importantly add the insight like macroeconomic context, key actions for the businesses as well as organisation’s strategy and direction. Lots of companies, including NatWest, share a valuable content on LinkedIn, like articles or webinars with specialists. If I were to point at one key value for Influencer and Storyteller, I would say it is an ability to translate the information and knowledge into meaningful information for a stakeholder. The amount of details and way of presenting will differ when it is shared with a colleague from the team, line manager or
a stakeholder. It is a precious skill to be able to adjust the form to the receiver.

Last but surely not least – technical knowledge. Currently, the market offers lots of courses dedicated to a particular programming languages or certifications confirming proficiency in using a tool or system. The range of opportunities is very impressive however I would like to focus on the platforms like Data Camp, Udacity, Udemy or eDX. Users can find there paid as well as free courses online. What makes this type of trainings worth to mention comparing to others? As a most important advantage, I would mention the vast array of trainings in one place, interactive formulas, and check points to be done individually. Everything is backed up with training materials, videos, and comments from the trainers (who, worth to mention, are often experts from different companies, so they are also advanced with the ‘know how’). After the assessments are done, user can also check the additional comments from the trainers, suggestion of the proper answer (in terms of coding, there is usually more than one answer, so best practises are shared there). Additionally, depending on the users’ needs, there are more general overviews of particular tools like “Tableau introduction” available as well as more fit for the particular role like “Data Analysis in Tableau” or “Creating dashboards in Tableau”. Thanks to the variety of topics that are sliced and diced, user can gain desired skillset within a relatively limited amount of time.

To wrap up, on which stage of the journey is NatWest as a company? Through the 10 years
I have been supporting this evolution, I see how far this organisation has come. I see lots of examples of using data visualisation tools like Tableau or Power BI instead of MS PowerPoint. They enable presenting data in more interactive way, supporting business discussions on different levels, reaching also ExCo level. And all of that without single page printed (Climate-wise!). Increasing importance and quality of models for planning and budgeting as EPM create more room for improvement for financial and business skills of Storyteller and Influencer. It really supports the journey from BI to FP&A role. It is very valuable to not only observe this change but be an active part of it. At the end of the day very much depends on the end users and their approach to technology, which surely is there to support, not replace us!

And the finale note from the author.. Just weeks after I have finished my article, my journey has reached another level! I have changed my role internally from my FP&A area to the Performance Insights department which supports Finance stakeholders with Tableau visualisations. I strongly believe that marrying up my technical and financial experience will benefit in creating great, complex role once again. Fingers crossed!

Author: Anna Warzyńska

Photo source: Unsplash