A profit maximizing firm needs to minimize cost and improving operations can bring a cost advantage to the business. In turn, effective communication between the CFO and the head of supply chain management in a business is correlated to business growth.  Great communication between two departments in a business can add more insight on how the business should operate, better risk-management, and greater alignment in achieving the firm’s goals. According to a report by EY, earnings growth of 5% has been directly related to an increase in “business partnering.” What does this tell us? Group decision-making in a firm is much more effective than individual departments deciding by themselves. We can see this because group decision-making provides more complete information, a diversity of views, and creativity. As a result, decision-making increases the accuracy for businesses  as there is more information used to construct a decision and ultimately it is more widely accepted in the business. However, group decision-making can be time-consuming and conformity pressures may be present in groups. We can see that healthy relationships between the finance and operations department can warrant more cost efficient ways to run the businesses’ operations while increasing productivity at the same time. Ultimately, cooperation achieves the desires of departments which all achieve the firm’s goal of maximizing profits.