www.controllerverein.com Controlling - Creating Future

Publisher: International Controller Association ICV | Poznań Office

Dear Readers! Spring was the time full

of interesting ICV

events. Not only did we

have the 39th Controller

Congress in Munich for the

whole Controller Community (you can read the relation in

this issue) but also ICV members countries organized a lot

meetings and conferences — in English and in the country

languages. On our homepage you can follow past and

future events. Let’s stay in touch!

On the General Meeting in May the Board showed how the

ICV sustainably grows through the acquisition of numerous

corporate members: we are very close to 100—maybe

your company will be our 100th member? Also in May Dr.

Albrecht Deyhle celebrated his 80th birthday - I’m happy

we all could congratulate him at the Controller Congress!

In the Bulletin you can read an article by Dr. Hendrik Vater

translated from German. He presents the topic of invest

management in a value-oriented company. We also have

other publications in the Association: there is a new state-

ment printed: Green Controllling (one of the most important

topics for all companies thinking about the future develop-

ment) and a new White Paper: Big Data (more in this is-

sue)!

If you think the controlling solution in your company dese-

rve some recognition, take part in our competitions: there

are three prizes offered by the ICV and our Partners: Inter-

national Controller Award, Controlling-Newcomer Award

and Green Controlling Award (we’re proud that WiWo Gre-

en—the leading German economy magazine is our media

partner again)! Take the challenge! Among the winners of

the prizes are Lufthansa AG, Hansgrohe AG and Volkswa-

gen AG!

I hope you have great holidays and come back to work

with new ideas! I’m looking forward to seeing you at the

Autumn events!

Much pleasure while reading!

Yours

Dr. Adrianna Lewandowska

ICV Board Member

International

Controller Association

ICV Bulletin | July 2014

In this issue:

Big Data: „Enabler“ of the controllers’ role as business partner

ICV Awards

39th Controller Congress, Munich

Dear Sir / Madam in the Controller Community, I am thrilled after reading your messages on the occasion of my 80th birthday. I was able to personally meet many of those who have written me wishes on the blog: at the General Me-eting of the ICV members May 18 in Westin Hotel, as well as at the Controller Congress on May 19. I was also able to shake your hands! I wish you all the best in your professional and private lives! And I thank you a lot for your congratulations in the name of myself and my family, Yours Albrecht Deyhle

Dr. Deyhle thanks the Communi-ty for the Birthday wishes

ICV Bulletin | July 2014

Big Data: „Enabler“ of the con-

trollers’ role as business partner

A new White Paper of the International Controller Asso-

ciation „Big Data – a blessing for the controlling?“ de-

scribes the consequences of Big Data.

The impacts of Big Data on companies are in the spot-light, as well as the consequences for the controlling and the controllers’ responsibilities. The Controlling Community is discussing questions such as „Is Big Data bringing old dreams to life in the planning and control-ling process or is it simply old wine in new bottles?” or “Is Big Data strengthening or weakening the controllers’ role?” The White Paper of Siegfried Gänßlen, Chairman of the International Controller Association e.V. (ICV), CEO of Hansgrohe SE, and Prof. Dr. Heimo Losbichler, ICV-Vice-Chairman of the Fachhochschule Steyr (Technical University of Steyr, Austria), fields of study: Controlling, Finance and Accounting, is inspiring a new momentum for that. Big Data is a central issue in the Controlling Community. A clear signal is: the “Big Data” topic centre of this year’s an-nual Controller Congress in Munich, Germany, experienced an immense rush of visitors. The ICV Think Tank workshop had presented a Dream-Car-Report for the conference. The Think Tank including a team of experts being specialists in practice, scientists and consultants , evaluated future topics for controlling, and concluded the following: Big Data is pro-viding high potential for improving planning and business management processes; its implementation is to be verified thoroughly by means of controlling, in order to identify its real added value; the controllers are mainly required as business partners for integrating Big Data into corporate management. The experts of the ICV Think Tank present: the increasing volume of data together with new processing options offer completely new chances for controlling. Getting access to monetary and non-monetary information of various kinds enables controllers to discover new options for improved planning and controlling processes on different levels of cor-porate management. Big Data is at the same time a great source for a whole range of new challenges for controllers who themselves have to cope with this subject in an active way. Together with other responsibilities, they have to know which data and which technologies of data management are available. In this moment their special knowhow is required with regard to analysis techniques and visualization options. Controllers are more than ever challenged to engage them-selves in further training programs and to explore new com-petence fields introduced by Big Data, according to an urgent appeal in the White Paper: „as two new professions have developed, the business analyst and the data scientist, with competences and fields of activities overlapping with the ones of the controller. “ Big Data from the controllers‘ point of view The Think Tank’s definition of Big Data is „the analysis and real-time processing of huge unstructured and permanently flowing data packages coming from a variety of different data sources in order to create credible information building a platform for profit orientated decisions.” According to the Gänßlen and Losbichler ICV White Papers, Big Data comprises mainly three stages of the information management process: information development, information transfer and information processing. Sensors, bar codes,

Siegfried Gänßlen and Prof. Dr. Heimo Losbichler at the ICV General Meeting, May 2014

Dr. Lothar Burow, Head of Corporate Business Intelligence at Bayer AG, Leverkusen, gave a lecture at the 39th Con-gress of Controllers “Big Data equals Big Values? Euphoria in business" , May 2014 RFID, GPS, internet Applications etc. provide access to in-credible amounts of data and information having not been available until now. Cloud computing, in-memory-applications and new transfer technologies are helping to forward and process information with unthinkable velocity observing and evaluating it in real time by means of smart-phones, tablets etc. at any place and time in the world. Com-panies are able to easily receive knowledge from Big Data in a fast and real-time way concerning business partners, mar-kets and business processes, balanced provision of re-sources, background information on margins and costs as well as on risks and chances. The possibility to discover ab-solute new fields of information might offer a big advantage in competition, especially when connecting these fields. Effects of Big Data on controlling processes and on con-trollers The effects of Big Data on the controlling process are to be

found according to Gänßlen and Losbichler in the new poten-

tials of information supply and decision support management

at first. A new transparency is created by the huge amounts

of data, having not been available until now, with regard to

clients, products, resources and business processes, as well

as new processing and analysis options influencing the over-

all processes of controlling; from strategic planning and

budgeting to reporting and cost calculation up to risk

© International Controller Association ICV | Poznań Office

ICV Bulletin | July 2014

management. Alongside with this process it is inevitable to adjust the business control model system to Big Data in or-der to define a data model with regard to individual business requirements, and to structure and assess the available data. The second effect concerns the chance to visibly automate

the processing and analyzing of information. Controlling

processes become more and more efficient and significantly

faster by implementing new technologies such as in memory

processing or new analyzing functions. Controllers face the

challenge to adapt to this speed. Automation will take over

parts of the actual duties and responsibilities of controllers.

The additional capacities can be used for „high-value“ activi-

ties, according to Gänßlen and Losbichler. Big Data might

enable controllers to work more intensively on the implemen-

tation of figures and less intensively on their compilation –

Big Data as „Enabler“ of the business-partner-role. The

chance for automation and higher efficiency is to be re-

garded as obligation at the same time, as reminded by the

authors, because without automation and increasing effi-

ciency these data amounts would not be manageable in the

future and the growing demands asked from executive man-

agers could no longer be met.

Third consequence in order to benefit from Big Data will be

the necessity to process increasingly growing piles of data

and endless rows of figures not only in an efficient way but

also to transfer them into a meaningful control information

system by means of excellent reporting design and new

forms of visualization.

Big Data provides decision support Finally, facing the obvious effects of Big Data on the control-

ling process, one may not forget that it does not only change

the controlling process but also the whole world of business

(see Industry 4.0). In order to successfully exist as partners

of management, controllers being in the process of Big Data

transformation are not allowed to be satisfied with the

changes within the controlling process or to be too focused

on themselves. On the contrary, they have to visualize the

effects on the company in total.

Big Data will further strengthen the developments of the pre-

ceding 20 years towards a higher qualified position of con-

trollers, and will definitely not end in the elimination of the

controller, according the ICV White Paper. As soon as con-

trollers understand the potential of Big Data and react pro-

actively, Big Data offers an enormous chance to them. The

design of the business data model, the structuring and as-

sessing of mainly unstructured, unsecured external data (e.g.

from social media) or the selection and implementation of

analysis models (the controller as data- scientist) are exam-

ples of new areas of use.

According to the ICV view, controllers take over the part of the sparring partner as critical counterpart with an individual opinion. It might be well understood that by means of Big Data it may become more and more possible to create an „IT-system-opinion“ , signifying concrete decision proposals to be included into the controlling process. These would be, however, considered only as support for making decisions – Decision Support - and not as a threat. Monitoring the Big-Data-Transformation In spite of the radiant technological developments, Big Data is to be seen as a long-term, far reaching transformation which does not only affect the fields of activities of controllers but also the entire company. Big Data will change corporate management decisively (Industry 4.0). Controllers should use their existing competences, particularly the overview on the corporate-wide processes, in order to restructure the value-added chains within companies and, thus, to addition-ally increase the competitiveness and profit margins. Control-lers are predestined for monitoring the Big-Data-Transformation due to their general overview. Dream Car and White Paper of the ICV are milestones when discussing this issue in the Controlling Community. At the same time they are the basis for further debates about this special topic in the ICV, in particular in the ICV-expert group „Business Intelligence“. This network of experts will among other things continue to work on this issue by order of the chairman which means to develop a controllers’ guideline for the business routine in companies.

© International Controller Association ICV | Poznań Office