Companies are increasingly confronted with reporting obligations and documentation requirements, combined with rising costs and bureaucratic effort. ICV Board of Trustees members Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer and Jens Bieniek have highlighted in an article that controlling plays a decisive role in this situation: It must not only implement legal requirements, but also cushion the negative effects of the flood of regulation on efficiency and management quality. The F.A.Z. published her article online here on October 26, 2025 and in its print edition on October 27. Our readers can obtain the manuscript version (in German) here in ICV Controlling-Wissen.

In the article, the authors point out, among other things, that according to a VDMA study, between 1.3 and six percent of turnover in mechanical and plant engineering is spent on fulfilling regulatory obligations alone, depending on the size of the company. This burden leads to duplication of work, inefficient processes and sometimes embellished reports – which jeopardizes transparency and the ability to control. In addition, topics such as sustainability or risk management are often only seen as compulsory exercises. As soon as formal compliance is achieved, management often loses interest – a dangerous trend that undermines the actual objective of the regulations.

This is precisely where Schäffer and Bieniek see controlling as having a responsibility. As business partners, controllers should ensure the rationality of corporate management, identify inefficient regulatory processes and work with management to find ways to reduce costs. The automated EU taxonomy reporting from Bosch, which won the ICV Controlling Excellence Award (now the Albrecht Deyhle Award for Controlling Excellence) in 2024, is cited as an example (details of the winning project here).

The authors are both members of the ICV Board of Trustees
Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer heads the Institute for Management and Controlling at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Association of Controllers (ICV).
Jens Bieniek is Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board of dbh Logistics IT AG and also a member of the ICV Board of Trustees.