1. How Effective is Your
Finance Team?

2. Meet the Presenter
Chris Ortega, MBA, Manager, Financial
Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
• chris.ortega@weblinkinternational.com

3. Presentation Agenda
Market Forces Affecting Finance
Evolution of Finance Teams
•Why it is important to you?
•How do you get started?
Questions

4. Market Forces Affecting Finance
Source: AICPA FP&A

5. Social Networks – Market Focus
Finance professionals now have access to
expert advice through various social media
channels.
LinkedIn has empowered finance professionals
to engage with others outside their traditional
team to expand skills and leverage resources.
Social media has also affected the talent
management of traditional finance teams.

6. Big Data – Market Force
Big Data
• Extremely large data sets that maybe analyzed
computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and
associations, especially relating to human behavior
and interactions
Access to these data sets is greatly improving
the value added capabilities of finance teams to
provide new insights into their organizations.
Finance teams in associations or chambers
benefit from big data as they are looking for
new ways to gain insights into their members
and other aspects of their organization.

7. Big Data – Market Force
With the focus on big data, business
intelligence and data analysis tools become
hugely valuable in extracting these large data
sets and producing actionable insights.
Tools such as Power BI, Tableau, Qlik, and
other business intelligence tools provide
forward thinking financial professionals the
ability to accelerate their decision making.
• Helps to scale ways to identify emerging trends
Big data analytics can help associations and
chambers by providing insights by:
• Targeting new programs or events for underserved
locations
• Driving new members with informed analysis

8. Demographic Shift– Market Force
Millennials- a person reaching young adulthood
around the 2000’s.
• By the year 2025, millennials are expected to make up as
much as 75% of the American workforce.
Characteristics of millennials on the finance team.
• Analytical
• Risk taking
• New Perspective
• Connected
• Tech Savvy
• Curiosity
Millennials drivers in finance team and organization.
• Instant Gratification & Recognition
• Flexibility
• Collaboration
• Career Advancement
• Shaping future of finance team and organization

9. Evolution of Finance Teams
How finance teams are evolving and driving change

10. Evolution of Traditional Finance

11. Finance Teams - Now
Currently, in many organizations finance team
members are viewed as “Scorekeepers” or
“Disciplined Operators”
This is low in providing finance efficiency and
business insights.
• For example, many finance teams are closing the books,
invoicing customers, reconciling accounts, or applying cash.
This limits your organization from providing key
business insights in the following areas:
• Insights into driving decision making for prioritization of
resources
• Increasing membership engagement and retention
• Driving strong operational cash

12. Finance Teams - Future
Given the previously mentioned
market focus affecting finance, it should
be the goal of your organization to
move to becoming a value integrator.
Value integrators for finance teams are
where you are balanced in finance
efficiency and providing high value
business insights.
• Helps by providing business insights to make
better business decisions
• Driving organization agility and ability to
navigate an ever changing environment.

13. Finance Teams - Future

14. Why this important for you?
With changing market forces in finance, evolving the finance team is
vital to organizational success.
Attracting the right talent and developing existing staff will work toward
providing better insights to your organization.
Understanding these forces now will help position your organization to
begin implementing processes and procedures to drive change.
You have an active role in shaping your finance team and this all starts
with moving toward being value integrators to your organization.

15. How do I get started?
Why are we doing
this?
What capabilities do
we need?
Where are we today?
How will we get
there?
Who will be
responsible?
Organization Vision Team Scoping Establishing Baseline Planning
Build, Measure, and
Learn
1. Clear team
goals and
objectives
1. Skills and
Passion required
in the team
1. Assessment
current skills of
existing team
1. Establish
process to bring
about change
1. Executive
leadership
2. Aligning team
goals with
organization
strategy
2. New roles and
functions within
the team
2. Understanding
career goals
2. Training and
acquire of
required skills
2. Incentivize
team for change
3. Establishing a
learning culture
3. Establishing
milestones for
achieving
transformation
3. Identify gaps
within in the tem
for future
planning
3. Instill continual
transformation in
the company
culture
3. Ongoing
learning within
the team
4. Understanding
Market forces
4. Establish
strategic plan for
change
4. Ensure
consistent
commitment to
team
transformation

16. In Closing…
Finance, like many other operational functions inside
of associations and chambers, is evolving.
Lastly, as your members are growing and adapting it
is equally important for your organization to meet their
needs and drive the wheel for economic growth!

17. Questions ?