In many finance teams, there’s an unspoken badge of honor around being lean. “Only one person knows how to do this” can sound like efficiency. But more often, it’s a warning sign.
Because what looks like “no overlap” can quickly become “no backup.”
We associate redundancy with waste: duplicated efforts, double entry, excess headcount. In a world obsessed with optimization, redundancy feels outdated.
But in finance - where deadlines are fixed, quality is non-negotiable, and key people occasionally get sick, switch jobs, or just go on vacation - redundancy is not waste.
It’s resilience.
Every team has them: the person who “just knows” how to pull the data. The only one who’s ever filed the VAT return. The quiet expert behind the final numbers.
And that works… until it doesn’t.
These aren't operational issues - they're structural vulnerabilities.
It’s not about having two people do the same thing all the time. It’s about:
When you spread critical knowledge, you reduce downtime, stress, and onboarding time. You create options. You buy peace of mind.
Things will go wrong.
People will leave.
Systems will fail.
That’s not pessimism - it’s reality. Redundancy is your insurance policy.
But the moment you need it isn’t the time to start building it.
/ Filip Ullsten @WorkTiles
