CTcon: Digitalisation

Boos­ting di­gi­ta­li­sa­ti­on po­ten­ti­al in ma­na­ge­ment and lea­der­ship

Taking decisions better-founded

Sound and well reflected decisions following clear, better measurable criteria are based on situationally appropriate and reliable facts. High expectation for decision-makers and on their information base: A benchmark for business partnering.

Digitalisation is an opportunity and an obligation for corporate management: Change or die!

Digitalisation is an opportunity as well as an obligation for a targeted and activity-oriented management. Up-to-date data is available, often real time delivering highly differentiated insights, often even automatically recorded. How does data turn into information? How to align the management system with the details of operational reality? What needs to be re-thought? What remains? Successful and new business models prove that existing obstacles can be overcome quickly and that the majority of them were actually carelessly self-created. Today, corporate management needs a flexible, comprehensive controlling. This requires new "skills" of controllers: an even more in-depth understanding of the business as well as deeper know-how of algorithms and advanced analytics. From now on, digitalisation must be used to actively manage business complexity through data instead of just reducing it.

Major advantages

1. Foster process orientation

From up- to downstream along the value chain, the end-to-end process depicts the value added. Corporate control systems need to pick up the respective value chain activities consistently to foster precise measures and effective decision making. Only then, controllers and managers are on the same page.

2. Harmonize perspectives

A 360 degree view combines all relevant business perspectives simultaneously. Successful decision-making strives for overall success. The closer functional perspectives are aligned, the better the balancing of naturally existing target conflicts.

3. Understand causal chains

Conflicting cause and effect relations between profitability, productivity and quality typically characterize an overall picture. The better their interrelation is reflected in each individual case, the more effective is the definition of improvement measures and the assignment of related responsibilities.

4. See the big picture

The individual decision is rational if it optimises the whole rather than just focusing on suboptima. Given the numerous interactions within a company, priority rules are only effective, if they provide a specific fit to the situation and the individual decision at hand.

5. Implement strategy

Strategies come to life via driver trees of KPI and their organisational cascading. The more acitivity-oriented strategy and planning are designed, the more effective their implementation: "Everyone pulls in the same direction", projects run in line with the organisation and individual progress is specifically measurable.

6. Strengthen ability to act

Actions are more successful when manage-ment and leadership perspectives are aligned seamlessly. Relevant management information is forward-looking and shows critical deviations from targets. The need for action is always precisely assigned to one or more responsible persons. 

With digitalisation, controlling dives deeper into operating business

Data collection, connection and intelligence equally benefit from digitalisation: Cloud solutions provide the prerequisite for up-to-date data. Building on that, controlling is able to access the data required by the situation and to offer agile management combined with adequate information: Decision making can be supported by practice-related data. With enormous computing power, complex simula¬tions are possible and what-if scenarios can be created for alternatives. IT-based decision models provided by controlling deliver autonomous real-time processes and reduce costs significantly. Fully automated data flows allow providing decision-makers with all relevant information real time via mobile devices. The result is a unified 360-degree view on all steering-relevant data from the shop floor to the C-level as well as end-to-end, combined with the option of specific analysis in detail.

  • Data collection: capturing information through innovative, hyper-sensitive identification technologies, sensors and information systems
  • Data connection: using intelligent logic to network data to create a networked world
  • Data intelligence: analysing large, partly unstructured datasets and identifying relevant information

Views on individual decisions can be differentiated towards horizon, depth and focus perspective, if necessary. Relations between line organisation and projects, between functions or business areas are reflected more appropriately, i.e reality-related, and not artificially reduced like in "year-end view". 

Based on predictive and prescriptive analytics, decision support is much more "forward-looking". Data do not play a secondary role anymore, instead, they are a decisive competitive advantage for the further development and pursuit of the corporate strategy. Modern methods and high-performance software solutions provide new opportunities for analysing complex data volumes. The focus shifts from descriptive, diagnostic data analysis to a future-oriented approach providing recommended actions – even considering external data sources. The question is no longer "what has happened and why" but "what will happen” and “how it can be actively influenced". This is where entrepreneurs come into play.

Digitalisation leads to new requirements

The controller of the future has a deep understanding of business processes, advanced analytics as well as agile development methods. Thus, the controller becomes a driver for innovation and change in his own company. Controller’s task is to find the "so what"-answer from the magnitude of available data in a structured way and to communicate the implications for the own business in a comprehensible manner. Fact-based decision-making processes, which incorporate multi-dimensional facts in high quality, are a must in the future.

As business partners, controllers are proactively setting even more impulses and provide management with well founded recommendations for actions. Digitalisation creates a new era of decision-support and -making. For the CFO this means a new and enhanced understanding of his role, which expands to also being a driver of digitalisation.

We accompany companies to focus on key fields of action on their path to digitalisation. The goal is to take appropriate fact-based decisions for the future. We design the digital transformation for management step by step and fit for the company’s specific situation. Consequently, we permanently strive for measurable high added value for our clients in terms of their operations and customers. Aligned with the strategic goals and based on facts, business understanding is translated into action.

 

Now is the right time to seize new opportunities for your business!

Your contact person

Dr Christian Bungenstock
Partner | Düsseldorf | Germany
Get in touch
Niklas Hartmann
Principal | Frankfurt | Germany
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