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Is storytelling your firm’s most valuable asset?
As the ‘smart finance function’ and outsourced ‘finance as a service’ model grows in popularity, clients are looking for more than just financial reporting. Here’s why storytelling will separate the stand-out firms and lead to success.
Alastair Barlow
August 23, 2025
Shakespeare and Steve Jobs - both great storytellers who used the power of story to build a following, out-sell their competitors, and influence society.
There’s a science to, and behind, storytelling. As Mark Turner, a Berkeley-educated and award-winning cognitive scientist explains:
Narrative imaging - story - is the fundamental instrument of thought. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.
And this definition does a good job of introducing why storytelling is relevant to the ‘smart finance function’ service.
The purpose of an outsourced, smart finance function, or finance-as-a-service (FaaS), is to much more meaningfully partner with clients, using financial (and non-financial) data to advise and guide on commercial opportunities.
Compared to the traditional accounting practice, a smart finance function is far more forward-thinking. It’s strategic and tactical. It’s commercial and contextualised. To borrow Mark Turner’s words, it’s about predicting, planning, and explaining, making storytelling crucial to the role.