Grupo Bimbo Finance School
The Challenge
Grupo Bimbo is a Mexican multinational bakery product manufacturing company headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is one of the world's largest baking companies, with a significant presence in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Founded in 1945, Bimbo operates under various brand names in different countries, producing a wide range of bakery and related products including breads, cookies, cakes, pastries, and snacks.
To cope with the expansive global presence, Grupo Bimbo’s FP&A team wanted to engage in a strategic initiative to evolve its ability to act as a true business partner across the organization. The goal was clear: to create a finance team that was not just a number cruncher but a strategic advisor, deeply embedded in all aspects of the business.
The Solution
The initiative began with a comprehensive skills assessment, identifying areas where the finance team needed to develop in order to support more complex, strategic business decisions. Business Partnering institute assisting in developing a business finance capability model and performing a team-wide capability assessment.
In addition to the capability assessment, a range of relevant business stakeholders were interviewed to learn more about the business’ needs for finance support. These efforts revealed a need for an investment in training and development, focusing on areas like self-leadership, customer-centricity, problem-solving, communication.
“We must combat the perception that Finance is the police. We must move from police to partner.”
Diego Gaxiola Cuevas, CFO
Business Partnering Institute helped unfold a 9-month blended learning journey through instructor-led training, on-the-job exercises, self-study, e-learning and group work. The learning journey was designd to close the capability gaps identified during the capability assessment targeting selected business partnering skills.
Learning sprints included:
The role and mindset of a business partner
Making time and prioritizing value-adding work
Becoming a customer centric business partner
Engaging with, and exploring the local markets
Solving problems and generating insights
Communicating and influencing decisions
Leading change and driving business impact
The learning journey was rolled out with net promotor scores consistently hitting above 50% for all modules and learning activities - virtual as well as physical.
The Impact
The initiative established a common finance impact framework by aligning the finance community around a common aspiration for business partnering. Furthermore, the initiative provided relevant learning opportunities that helped the participants improve their finance business partnering capabilities in line the with the strategic ambition.
Additionally, the initiative strengthened the team spirit and internal collaboration, while also improving talent attraction and retention.
Reach out to christian@bpidk.org for more details.