Financial performance manager - myth or reality

Financial performance manager - myth or reality

 

Perception is often the reality. The CFO of yesterday was required to measure , report and control HOW WELL WE ARE DOING. The CFO of tomorrow is about HOW WELL WE CAN DO. Then problem is that many organizations manifest the yesterday culture even irrespective of how the incumbent CFO wants "to do things around here" 

 

The difference between how well we are doing and how well we can we can do can be described as the organizational performance gap. For the purposes of this discussion let call how well we can do as the organizational GROSS POTENTIAL. It would then be the job of the performance manger to identify the performance gap and move the business towards the gross potential.

 

We are now faced with the potential dilemma to create a methodology of defining the gross potential. One way that this could be done is by defining what are the required core competencies required to drive superior competitive capabilities.

 

These core competencies are or completive capabilities can be segmented based on the respective business model. In general examples of these core competencies could include.

• Customer core competencies that in turn would divided into customer growth capabilities and existing customer growth and management  capabilities.

• Value offer core capabilities represented by those capabilities to create superior value to the targeted customer. Once again the subdivision between existing value offers be they products or services or a combination of both and the development of new value offers.

• Channel core competencies reflecting those capabilities to develop and maintain effective access channels to serve the targeted customer

• Strategic relationship core competencies which enhance the capabilities to compete effectively

• Business process, technology  and policy capabilities
• Learning and growth core capabilities required to develop employees and the tools they use.

In the heart of these capabilities would be how they influence and impact financial performance.

 

Gross potential would thus be the sum of the what these capabilities should be. The performance gap would be the differential between the current state and the desired state.

 

The job of the performance manager becomes somewhat more systematic. She would target the those capabilities with the largest gap. 

 

Your job until we meet again is to identify your performance manager , empower him or her and attain a clear definition of your required core competitive capabilities.