|
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Batuhan: Drowning in a sea of numbers
By Allan S. B. Batuhan
Foreign Exchange
Strategic planning sessions are a critical element of a company’s integrated business management process. In fact, one can argue that it is the key to holding the whole process together.
It is, however, one of the least appreciated, and often the most misunderstood among those of us in management who should be integral to the process – the financial manager.
Establishing what we are about as a company dictates what it is that we should do and how we ought to go about it.
This involves exploring our values and belief systems, identifying areas where we are strong and avoiding those where we are weak. Only after having done this can we then start charting the course of our future direction–-our roadmap to success as an organization.
As an integrated thinking process, this is similar to planning for any major competitive endeavor. Whether it be winning the European football Champions’ League, snaring the NBA’s World Basketball Championship or besting the Philippine presidential elections. Only a well thought-out blueprint to achieve advantage over others similarly striving for the same goals can see an organization or individual through.
For this reason, sports managers, military officers, business leaders and politicians are often interchangeable. Pat Riley’s book on how he managed to achieve success at the helm of the LA Lakers is very useful material in MBA courses. Karl Rove’s strategy for taking President Bush to the White House provides useful insights to military strategists planning a major engagement. And, of course, the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” is a must-read for anyone wanting to be successful at anything.
Key to the whole approach is an analysis of available resources at an organization’s disposal, and how best these resources can be deployed among alternative uses to provide an organization with a sustainable competitive advantage over its rivals.
These resources may be professional athletes, media money, cruise missiles, bows and arrows or managers and staff. Their effective combination into a potent team spells the difference between an organization’s success and failure in its own competitive arena.
It is, therefore, self-evident that finance managers – as custodians and controllers of corporate resources – are very useful in any process that involves the evaluation of the alternative uses of such resources. Arguably, no other manager within an organization is better placed and holds as much influence in shaping long-term strategic direction.
Why then are most finance managers not leading strategic planning processes? Why are they most of the time relegated to the backseat when it comes to charting the course of business organizations?
Indeed, why do they allow themselves to be bench players in a game that demands them to deliver those winning clutch shots at crunchtime, killing opponents’ challenges with that 90th minute free kick straight to their goal?
Unfortunately, it is because the finance manager’s biggest strength may also be his fatal flaw. By training and inclination, we like to produce numbers, sometimes a little bit too much. Strategic planning demands few numbers, but many more insights.
True, the thinking process has to be backed up by analytical rigor, but this does not necessarily mean numbers out of spreadsheets and pivot tables. Sometimes one number is all you need. More often than not, everything you need to analyze can fit in one piece of paper.
Hence, many are called, but few are chosen. Only those that can make the transition from producing numbers to making sense out of them, the few that can expeditiously navigate through facts and figures without drowning in a sea of numbers, will eventually rise to the top of their game.
(allan.batuhan@pzcussons.com)
(September 3, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
