Prepare for your Future! How the ICV helps to take advantage of the opportunities of digitization

Digitization will fundamentally change the economy, even if the exact timing and content of this change is still uncertain. Corporate management and controlling are also facing major challenges. Such far-reaching developments cannot be without consequences for the International Association of Controllers.

Since its foundation, the ICV has seen itself as the spearhead of change in controlling, starting in the time when the concept of controlling postulated by Albrecht Deyhle was a major management innovation that had a significant impact on corporate practice. (Read also: Foundation of the ICV / Albrecht Deyhle

Committed to tradition: The ICV intends to play this role in the era of digitization that is now taking place, thus preparing controllers for the digital future. It is no coincidence that the motto of the Congress is Controllers 2019 is "Prepare for your Future!"

In order to meet the digital challenge and to take advantage of the associated opportunities, the ICV is taking the following measures:

  1. The ICV will identify and position the potential new roles and required capabilities of controllers. Leading the way on this path are already the expert work groups BI / Big Data and Controlling, Digital Transformation, Innovation Management and Future of Work. Controllers should be able to prove themselves in the new context, whatever their job title may be.
  2. In its content work, the ICV will focus even more on the consequences for controlling, less on a professional perspective. In the tradition of Albrecht Deyhle, it's all about making controlling, no matter what the distribution of tasks between managers, controllers, data scientists and others looks like. The ICV thus places the core function of rationality assurance in the digital context at the center of its work. It also targets new audiences - such as the just mentioned data scientists - and develops specific offers for them.
  3. The ICV takes into account the different conditions for controlling in large companies and SMEs. The organizational implications of digitization appear too different, the rate of change also. While the consequences of digitization are already being felt in controlling in some major corporations today, controller's everyday life in small and medium-sized companies is usually far from it. And not every digital solution from large companies makes sense in medium-sized companies.
  4. The ICV has a duty to raise awareness of the opportunities and risks of digitization at an early stage. It is important to demonstrate the need for change sufficiently clearly to motivate the controllers to make changes in the direction outlined. It would be negligent to underestimate the change and keep quiet about it. The ICV would not be doing its very own job just as well as when it would give the impression that the changes affect each company in the shortest possible time in the same way.
  5. The ICV systematically opens up to new ideas and seeks to communicate with relevant communities (such as Beyond Budgeting and Agility topics). Taboo topics should not exist in times of upheaval and change.

We all don't know exactly what controllers’ future will look like. Only one thing seems clear: if we want to be at the forefront of change, we have to take matters into our own hands. Role making is in demand. The ICV is ready for it!