Tax trying to convince finance to adopt a new tool or process

Tax often takes finance's buy-in for granted. We assume that they see the value of the new process, tool or policy. Very often they don’t. And so the spiral of frustration gets kicked into gear…

Transforming and future-proofing the tax function requires change. We revisit the AS IS and work towards a TO BE. This can be related to how we manage tax compliance, controversy, projects or day-to-day business support. We rethink our ways of working, policies and processes, data management and tooling we have in place.

All of this makes perfect sense. Most of us know that we need to adhere to the People > Process > Data > Technology sequence. But still, very often, we get blocked. We experience resistance to change. Objection towards the new way of working. Better or not, our stakeholders don’t adopt the plans we have blueprinted. And thus our transformation efforts derail.

“Meh, it’s manual, we will not do it”.

“We have always done it like this, why do we need change”.

“Oh, but this means more work for us 🙅‍♂️”.

All the above are signs of no buy-in.

The root cause? The WHY is unclear. We failed to properly communicate “what’s in it for them”. And as a next step, what’s in it for all of us (the entire organization).

Change requires effort. Always. For everyone. Nobody likes it, it’s normal. The only way to drive change is to over-index on the WHY. Present their return on investment to your stakeholders. Avoid jargon, go for the most plain-vanilla wording.

You cannot bypass this very first step. Don’t try to cut corners in your transformation journey. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.