The Business Empowerment Maturity Model is designed to help finance professionals plot a course to becoming truly strategic players in their organization. Use it to recognize where you are in your journey from information provider to key figure who summons data on demand and uses it to strategically advise colleagues. The Business Empowerment Maturity Model also helps you to understand what roadblocks are holding you back and how you can overcome them. For more on how you can become a strategic business advisor, visit us at cfo.unit4.com.

1. In business for people.
Standardize
Structure your
finance procedures
ROADBLOCKS SOLUTIONS
Predict
Deploy flexible,
real-time analysis
Optimize
Execute your
processes efficiently
• No big picture
• ‘Off-system’ email to collaborate
• Change is time-consuming
• Opaque data ownership
• Procedures are ignored
• Common data procedures
• Cut delays and access to
real-time data
• Eliminate spreadsheets
for collaboration
• Record data touch points
• Single, uniformly presented data
• Outdated & unreliable data
stops ad-hoc analysis
• Non-standard reporting
is prohibitive
• Standard reporting spreadsheets are
inflexible
• Business intelligence (BI) can’t react to
change
• A unified finance system
• Assimilate regulations and standards
automatically
• Mobile-enabled analysis in graphs,
charts or tables
• Quickly model potential responses to
change
Drive
Achieve automated
self-service
• Lingering data reliability, reporting and
collaboration issues
• Fragmented data without
context disguises real picture
• Rigid, daily routines
• Performance-related results of what-if
scenarios impossible
• Enable collaboration, decision making
and execution, but
also track KPIs
• Invest in BI and finance systems that
deliver value
• Evolve beyond current systems
• Use systems that fully integrate real-
time financial information
• No single version of the truth
• Growing IT costs
• Costs of change
discourage action
• Many systems and practices across
the organization
• Store and analyze in
one location
• Ensure data is input accurately
• Flexible technology that is
easy to run and change
STAGE 1
STAGE 2
STAGE 3
STAGE 4
For more on how to achieve strategic business advisor status, visit cfo.unit4.com
The 4 Steps of Becoming a Business Partner
Plot a course to becoming a strategic business partner and empower
your organization to stop profits falling between operational cracks.