British Telecom - Finance Manager

Purpose Of Role : Finance Business Partner for Group Headquarters. Responsible for working with Corporate functions leadership and their management teams to shape and deliver business strategy and manage c- 50 m pa GMC

Key Responsibilities :

- Relationship building and stakeholder management - key relationships with the CFO, directors and their senior leadership teams, providing a wide range of financial & commercial guidance to the teams

- Act as a business partner or specialist role for specific business unit

- Investment appraisal - building business cases to support capex investment decisions, procurement negotiations, and other business change initiatives

- Ensure the timely delivery of monthly and quarterly financial results, and provision of financial/business information to key stakeholders, to help manage performance of the area against planned/expected outcomes.

- Responsible for managing the budgets and forecasts on an individual unit and consolidated basis. Provide clear and insightful reports to demonstrate and explain the operation of the businesses, delivery of cost transformation initiatives, year on year movements

- Recommend actions to deliver improved financial & operational performance and /or mitigate risks to plans. Work with business partners to implement and deliver these plans, by building strong working relationships with the business unit Directors and their teams.

- Ensure there is appropriate financial control & governance across all items of expenditure, approve significant items of expenditure and ensure approved business cases and benefits tracking are in place supporting investment decisions.

- Lead on cost transformation, working with the operational teams to identify cost saving /service improving initiatives, implement best practice across the units for discretionary spend and work with both procurement and operational leads to reduce 3rd party supplier spend.

- Personally accountable for ensuring financial accounting policies and process is followed. Suggests resolution to complex issues and across CFU boundaries (guidance sought in most cases) and/or advises on specialist area

- Operate internal trades for cost recovery - formal trading agreements between Group Finance and all CFUs. Key handshakes are made with CFO/FC's of all CFUs at major forecasts, reconciliations carried out at appropriate times throughout the year.

- Be able to deal with sensitive and highly confidential matters discreetly, whilst providing appropriate financial guidance

- Provide ad hoc support to Group CFOs for projects which could be business transformation, supplier negotiations, external reporting requirements

Business Impact :

- Translates business strategy into Leadership and Direction for members of the BT Finance Community

- Develops plans for projects over the medium / long term.

- Strong influencer of the operational teams.

Authority/Decision Making :

- Directly influences senior management thinking.

- Develops commercially sound solutions that influence business unit results and improve customer relationships.

- Accountable for business unit cost performance and business results delivered to deadlines.

- Responsible for OPEX and CAPEX spend up to sign off limits.

- Full negotiation responsibility in line with BT Group sign on / sign off governance

- Works with high level of authority on complex issues, can work independently whilst seeking appropriate support where necessary. Responds quickly and adapts to changing circumstances & requirements

- Takes decisions and exercises own judgement well, takes personal ownership & accountability for work undertaken.

Qualifications : Typically to Degree level and a fully qualified accountant

Cost Transformation :

- Cost transformation identified and financial outcomes/benefits measured and achieved Recognition of cost transformation opportunities with measurable outcomes. Reconciles identified Cost Transformation benefits to Financial ledgers and KPI reporting and thereby ensures financial integrity Develops and drives the cost transformation agenda and related financial outcomes to their team/role. Understands the cost base levers to develop and drive the cost transformation agenda and related financial and people outcomes for the business unit. Able to solve problems within a complex business unit/team/LoB.

- Ensures benefits can be measured and constantly reviews the value of spend to analyse trends, working with the appropriate teams to negotiate and improve profitability.

- Establishes a strong connect with the business unit and champions best practice. Benefits are successfully delivered by the business and are able to create a culture of accountability against desired benefits and outcomes.

- Understands fully, the impact of the outcomes from their work at LoB, Group and/or customer level and ensures sufficient resource availability and prioritisation to deliver required results.

- Is able to recognise opportunities to drive further/improved benefits in flight and pro-actively looks to sign off and integrate where appropriate.

- Can independently drive multiple programmes/projects to set timelines to deliver significant financial and non-financial benefits. Delivers sustainable repeatable cost transformation in addition to tactical one-of benefits.

- Change Management - Intermediate : Change effort successful with full participation, ownership and commitment from staff

- Vision is clearly communicated

- Engagement with staff is increased

- Leaders are willing to take accountability for driving change in their business area and for leading their people through transitions Ability to respond to and/or lead others through change. Understands the issues and dynamics of business change.

- With minimal supervision, able to lead and support colleagues to change their behaviour and adopt new attitudes to fit new ways of working. Able to motivate others to adopt and sustain changes in organisation, roles, processes, systems and information.

- Can adapt approach to change based on context or delivery method. Delivers through others without any direct line of responsibility. Can maintain focus to drive a solution through and demonstrates an appreciation of stakeholder priorities in the context of programme/project delivery.

- Able to manage problems and relationships in a less complex and political environment. Ensures change remains strategically aligned throughout delivery.

- Effectively defines and manages change management activities in line with BT methods/tools where original requirements may be ambiguous.

Risk Management Intermediate :

- Strong awareness of risk across BT, and the ability to manage accordingly

- Probability and impact controlled through the application of resources to minimise, monitor and control, reducing uncertainty. The way an organisation manages threats to, and opportunities presented by, the initiative in order to aid strategic decision making.

- Risk management balances threats and opportunities, with appropriate management actions to reduce or eliminate the likelihood of any identified risk occurring, and to minimise its impact if it does occur. It looks at a variety of risk types that affect the initiative, both internal and external, and focuses on tracking the triggers that create risks. Has a sound understanding of the core risk management concepts.

- Able to independently carry out basic activities in support of risk management, including identification and capture of threats and opportunities, together with the co-ordination of mitigating activities and contingency planning.

- Has typically performed such a role, without supervision, in a programme or project, business case, business plan or in an operational capacity as part of BT's enterprise risk framework.

Innovation :

- Customers needs met in new ways through more effective processes, services, technologies and ideas Thinking about a problem from a new perspective; it often involves taking conventional ideas and turning them around, combining them in different ways and producing a new 'idea' which in itself is new but contains existing and often well-known concepts Is able to challenge the status quo across lines of business, as well as using internal and external benchmarking to shape new ideas and methods.

- Able to develop new improvement ideas in a complex and highly bespoke environment to challenge existing ways of working.

- Pushes boundaries to find new ways to get results in spite of considerable resistance to change. Where relevant, researches the market place to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of differing offers. Able to generate support for innovative ideas buy influencing key stakeholders.

- Role models the attitude of having the confidence to fail with an idea and not accepting 'it can't be done' or it's been tried before.

- Provides coaching to junior members of the team to drive innovation throughout LoB teams.

Influencing :

- Buy in obtained through winning hearts and minds and presenting information in a way that influences opinion and drives solutions, and ultimately delivers value-adding solutions. The ability to affect, shape, and impact the decisions or actions of others in a timely manner. The ability to construct and present a concise, logical and persuasive argument which influences others.

- Is able to affect others' understanding and actions around a particular issue.

- Able to secure agreement/buy-in from relevant stakeholders to influence high impact decisions and/or actions.

- Able to effectively use a wide range of communication methods to achieve and adapt to deliver the required business outcome. Able to communicate clearly and succinctly both in written and verbal communications.

- Influences multiple senior stakeholders.

Stakeholder Management :

- Strong relationships developed between finance and the business

- Aligns stakeholder goals and issues to objectives of a change program

- Identified potential supporters and opponents of change

- Informs stakeholders so they can make better decisions and participate based on fact rather than rumour

- Reduced resistance to change through specific issues being addressed and driving consistency in messaging to a wider audience Stakeholders at different levels, both within and outside the organisation, need to be analysed and engaged effectively, to achieve objectives in terms of support and engagement.

- Stakeholder management includes communications planning, identification and use of different communications channels, and techniques to enable objectives to be achieved. It should be seen as an ongoing process across all initiatives, inherently linked to the initiative's life cycle and governance controls.

- Unsupervised and through leading teams (often including suppliers and/or customers), is capable of developing and implementing the organisation, roles, processes, tools, measures and plans to manage and influence senior stakeholders in high complexity/risk environments.

- Capable of developing trusted relationships with stakeholders at all levels both internally and externally, including executive management, and has successfully done so in multiple complex programmes or complex projects.

- Able to create, implement and manage complex stakeholder management arrangements often covering large numbers of senior stakeholders and covering multi-organisational relationships. Can manage very complex relationships and stakeholder expectations. Can challenge and negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes and resolve conflict.

- Able to secure agreement/buy-in from relevant stakeholders to influence high impact decisions and/or actions.

- Is capable of auditing all stakeholder management arrangements in order to ensure that requirements are fully met on a continuing basis. Has conducted mentoring or coaching of at least one individual in this area.

Data Management and Analysis :

- Better business outcomes achieved

- New analytical tools applied to reveal new opportunities

- Operational efficiency continuously improved

- Financial processes transformed and automated

- Better, faster decisions made The skill of being able to look at a set of data and interpret its meaning. Create relevant trends and apply knowledge to what the data means and extrapolate what it will look like in the future Recognises the impact of the outputs of reporting, data management & data analysis on the business.

- Applies detailed business knowledge to create a beneficial outcome for BT/business unit. This will include spotting a potential future trend and putting in a process to prevent it from occurring.

- Devises and utilises best practices approaches to analysis of the most complex issues. Actively drives insight and recommendations from analysis to enhance business decision making at a senior level.

- Provides new thinking to the business unit/team which helps to set the adoption of new approaches to analysis. Actively advises, coaches and encourages teams to conduct analysis using the correct framework.

Budgeting and Cost Management :

- Accurate spending forecasts developed and tracked with a clear understanding of the rationale behind them Budgeting and cost management is the estimating of costs and setting of an agreed budget, and the management of actual and forecast costs against that budget. It is the ability to analyse, report, present, forecast and manage cost to meet business objectives, including managing change and implementing cost control mechanisms.

- Unsupervised and through leading teams (often including suppliers and/or customers), is capable of developing and implementing the organisation and governance, roles, processes and tools to ensure effective budgeting and cost management, and has successfully done so in multiple portfolios, complex programmes or complex projects.

- Able to work with key stakeholders throughout the budgeting process, to refine, improve and challenge initial cost estimates within the constraints of the business case. As scope, schedule and resources are clarified and detailed, eventually arriving at an agreed budget phased over time to give a profile of expenditure to aid financing and funding, and allowing cash flow forecasts to be produced and drawdown of funds to be agreed.

- Is proficient with relevant techniques i.e. budgeting, forecasting and reporting - and has independently undertaken such activities on multiple projects/budgets/forecast cycles.

- Can set budgets and forecast at a unit level, explain and align operational drivers and teams to a plan.

- Unsupervised, mitigates risks and exploits opportunities within the plan

- Capable of leading periodic cost management reviews and resultant actions, and of auditing all arrangements in order to ensure that stakeholder requirements are fully met on a continuing basis. Has mentored or coached at least one individual in this area.

- Challenges the business to set stretching objectives

- Applies insightful analysis in the identification of opportunities and risks.

- Drives process improvements, eliminating inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

Business Case Development :

- Clearly articulated and agreed compelling need, benefits, risks, potential costs and timeline

- Value justified to BT, and enables management to determine if the project proposed is of value to the business

- Enables management to objectively measure the subsequent achievement of the business case's benefits The ability to build a business case which incorporates cost/benefit analysis, financial measures (e.g. RoI, NPV, IRR, DCF) and risk analysis and make effective recommendations based on the case's outcome.

- Can evidence considerable experience of building multiple and complex business cases using all the appropriate financial measures (e.g. TCO, NPV, RoI, IRR). Recognised by peers as an expert in this field. Likely to be a subject matter expert in their community on this topic.

- As a recognised expert practitioner within LoB, is able to lead on all aspects of business case management across all dimensions of BT. Regularly recommends and applies continuous improvements as well as preventative and corrective actions across business cases.

- Demonstrably continues to champion the values and principles that underpin the business case and strategic goals to leverage the realisation of interconnected benefits.

- Committed to the success of others in this area; has consistently led, guided and educated others in all aspects of the capability.