Continued evolution is key to creating an innovative, robust and diverse accounting and finance profession. Accounting and finance leaders can propel the profession forward by focusing on their organizations and using tools to promote sustainable changes.
To determine a starting point, you can assess the current maturity of your organization’s finance department using the Finance Assessment Model for Effectiveness (FAME) framework.
Rooted in five necessary dimensions for future-focused finance teams, the assessment allows you to measure your finance function’s capabilities against a thorough set of best practices and enables you to plot what steps need to be taken to move your organization into the future.
Transition to the futurist mindset
At the core of FAME lies a mindset evolution to help you and your finance team become finance futurists. FAME provides a framework that measures finance teams’ capabilities based on five dimensions — technical, digital, people, leadership and business. These were co-developed by CFOs and finance leaders of the Future of Finance Leadership Advisory Group (FFLAG) and derived from the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) Competency Framework. The dimensions hold to the standard that accounting and finance professionals are trusted, objective strategists for their organizations.
From these dimensions, the assessment then scores maturity-based levels that reveal where your team is along this transformation journey — scorekeepers, advisers, partners, value creators and futurists. As more is being asked of them, finance teams need to adopt a future-focused approach that moves them out of the role of scorekeepers and into the role of futurists. Applying the lessons of each dimension enables your team to evolve through each level — and FAME can guide you every step of the way.
When a finance team operates on the scorekeeper level, they are performing the basic functions of accounting and finance. They’re effective information gatherers who curate reports and perform business analysis.
When a futurist mindset is adapted, by comparison, your team demonstrates exceptional leadership in business performance, readily adopts and integrates new technology, delivers greater levels of customer experiences and generates more organizational value.
FAME provides an intentional and sustainable framework that allows teams to fully explore and expand their capabilities and become better prepared to meet the new demands of the profession.
Seek FAME and future success
Reshaping your finance team to meet the expanding needs of the profession will take insight to create an approach that’s right for your team. And you’re not alone — organizations and their finance functions across the world are in various stages of their own transformation. Tools like the FAME framework set a benchmark to navigate the way forward at your own pace.
Whether you’re starting your team’s evolution today or you’ve been adopting new ways of working for several years, strong leaders of this finance transformation are those who understand and embrace all facets of the evolution and want to drive the profession forward.
Completion of the “lite” FAME framework only takes 10 to 15 minutes and gives you an idea of what a comprehensive FAME assessment can do to help your organization move forward. Discover your finance organization's maturity level today.