Getting business-minded

The focus of finance departments in law firms must shift away from predominantly producing financial statements and audit reports to analysing business performance and forecasting using industry best practice. This requires a change in mindset, acquiring empowering technology that facilitates a joined-up view of the business as well as the right skill set to help with strategic and commercial finance.

Management reporting is an intrinsic activity of any finance function regardless of industry sector. According to a recent PwC report, well-performing finance functions in industry are spending 25 per cent more time on analysis and employ nearly 40 per cent more ‘business partnering’ roles than other averagely performing departments. They are also using technology innovatively in order to support this organic analysis and make metric monitoring routine and widespread.