How FP&A Professionals Can Expand Their Strategic Value

JC Consulting
May 19
5 min read

Updated: Oct 3

With supply chain volatility pushing businesses to rethink how they operate and shrinking the decision-making window, agility has become a business imperative.

Take manufacturing as an example: political or environmental disruptions can halt production overnight, and failing to respond quickly can result in lost revenue and eroded competitiveness.

To stay ahead, progressive organisations are moving toward a more mature phase of Integrated Business Planning (IBP), which unifies finance, operations, and strategic planning to enable agile, real-time decisions.

While IBP itself isn’t new, the role of FP&A in driving it is changing—and with it, the expectations placed on professionals. In this evolving landscape, many now find themselves wondering:

How can I stay relevant in an increasingly complex and challenging market?
What capabilities do I need to progress further up the career ladder?

How Is the Role of FP&A Evolving?

To answer these questions, it helps to first understand how a mature IBP model is influencing the role of FP&A, and below is a snapshot of the key changes we’ve distilled.

	From	To
Business Understanding	Department-level forecasting and budgeting	Holistic understanding of business drivers and interdependencies across functions.
Approach	Reactive, support role	A strategic partner that proactively: Engages with operational departments. Drives real-time decisions, long-term planning, risk management, and growth strategies.
Reporting & Decision Making	Excel-heavy Financial data-centred	Uses AI, ERP, advanced analytics, forecasting, and scenario modelling. Combines financial and operational data.
Focus	Cost control and retrospective analysis.	Forward-looking planning and actively identifies new opportunities to optimise revenue, growth, and investment returns.

As illustrated above, the pressure is on for professionals to go beyond traditional analysis and act as proactive business leaders, and underpinning this is the use of AI and technology. With these tech tools becoming more deeply embedded in FP&A workflows across organisations, digital fluency has become table stakes, and the gap between the good and exceptional is expected to narrow.

How Do I Stay Competitive in the Market?

Against this backdrop, the true differentiator now lies in how well individuals can derive insights using technology and translate them into actions that drive business impact.

1. Storytelling & Business Partnering

In this regard, high-performing individuals excel in two areas:

Stakeholder management: Building cross-functional relationships to access the operational data and context behind the numbers.
Strategic storytelling: Presenting insights in a way that speaks the language of the business.

Both involve communication skills: a combination of relaying information clearly and connecting with the audience. While this is more apparent in stakeholder management, storytelling is where many professionals struggle.

Too often, individuals approach storytelling with a finance-first mindset—more numbers, more charts—when what businesses actually want is to know:

What’s happening?
Why does it matter?
What should we do next?

And they want clear answers – fast.

Takeaway: Professionals who can connect the dots across functions and frame their message in terms of what’s at stake for the listener to inspire action will be able to establish themselves as strategic partners, not just technical contributors.

And this positioning matters for your career, for it lays the groundwork for progressing into senior roles like CFO, finance leader, or business unit head.

2. Value-Adding Through Business Acumen

Nonetheless, communication skills is only part of the equation. To stay competitive as roles evolve, sharp business acumen —your overall business sense and ability to apply your expertise in ways that benefit the business—is equally critical. As a portfolio of capabilities, business acumen can take several forms:

Demonstrating strategic thinking: the ability to link market trends as well as operational and financial metrics (e.g., break-even volume, margin accretion) to guide broader commercial strategies and decision-making and help with the identification of new growth levers.
Showing risk awareness: for example, anticipating second- and third-order effects of decisions, especially under uncertainty, and establishing plan parameters accordingly.
Being solution-oriented: providing actionable alternatives—not just pointing out problems but offering paths forward.

Just as important as having business sense is knowing when and how to demonstrate it, and this doesn’t necessarily mean dominating conversations. Rather, it’s about contributing with intent, bringing clarity, and driving the conversation forward when it matters. Consistently delivering this value is what earns trust, visibility, and eventually, bigger opportunities.

Takeaway: Of course, business acumen typically takes time to develop through deliberate exposure, real-world application, and adapting along the way.

While opportunities to build these muscles may not always be obvious, one CFO we spoke with shared a simple but powerful approach to doing so: actively listening during cross-departmental meetings. By observing and analysing how different leaders plan, execute, and make decisions, he was able to connect strategic thinking with financial models and develop a holistic understanding of the business that is essential for senior leadership roles.

The Overlooked Value of Starting Small

If you aspire to work in a senior role in an MNC but have yet to secure a suitable opportunity, consider taking on a leadership position in a smaller organisation. It may not be your end goal, but it can be a strategic move that pays dividends in the following ways:

Broader scope. Finance leaders in SMEs often wear multiple hats. While this can be demanding, the exposure helps you develop a holistic understanding of how companies run, which can sharpen your business acumen. At the same time, it also makes you more adaptable, which is an advantage during uncertain times when companies consolidate roles and value T-shaped talent who can stretch across disciplines.
Greater ownership. In a smaller organisation, you’re often also taking the driver’s wheel rather than just supporting decisions. That kind of autonomy can help build your confidence, hone your judgement, and accelerate your readiness for leadership at a larger enterprise.
A strong launchpad. Once that first senior title is on your resume, you’ll gain the credibility that opens doors to roles in bigger, established organisations.

t shape talent skills and competencies — Skills of a T-shape talent

That said, senior-level opportunities aren’t always easy to find—and the higher you go, the greater the stakes, making it even more critical to make informed career decisions. In this regard, working with a specialised finance recruitment consultant can be invaluable.

Beyond matching skills on paper, a good consultant understands the nuances: where a company is in its growth journey and whether that aligns with your strengths, values, and aspirations. With this insight, they can surface roles where you’re set up to succeed and thrive.

Looking Ahead: Seizing Opportunities Amid Change

At the end of the day, whether one chooses to see the glass as half empty or half full is what separates those who lead from those who follow.

Individuals who adopt a growth mindset and actively stay abreast in areas like geopolitics, emerging technologies, governance, and risk management will be better equipped to lead through change and turn challenges into opportunities.

At JC Consulting, our executive search firms in Singapore and China empower finance professionals with deep market insights and tailored career guidance to navigate today’s challenges and seize tomorrow’s opportunities.

We have dedicated consultants specialising in: