The ICV Controlling Excellence Award for exemplary controlling solutions

1. Download the “Documents for the ICV Controlling Excellence Award” on this page and submit your answers in PowerPoint or PDF format.
2. Present your project briefly in a presentation (10 to a maximum of 15 pages, PowerPoint format).
3. Please send the answers to the list of questions plus project presentation by e-mail or post to Carmen Zillmer, ICV Office (contact information on this page). Please announce the sending by e-mail or telephone.

The deadline for entries is January 31, 2026.

Please note: The work submitted must not have received an award before the ICV Controlling Excellence Award is presented and may only have been published in excerpts.

The Jury will evaluate the documents received.

We will inform you about the status of your application at the beginning/mid-March 2026.

Three nominees for the ICV Controlling Excellence Award will be invited to the 2026 Congress of Controllers. It will take place on April 27/28, 2026 in Munich. As a nominee, you and your presentation team can attend the two-day Congress of Controllers free of charge.

The award will be presented on the first day of the event – Monday, April 27, 2026. Honoring the winner is traditionally a highlight of the Congress. The winner will present their work to the audience (around 500 visitors). The presentation should last around 20 to 25 minutes.

The works of the other nominees will also be named at the event.

All nominees and the winner will receive a certificate and a digital badge. The winner also receives 3,000 euros in prize money.

ICV Chairman of the Board Prof. Dr. Heimo Losbichler (right) and the Chairman of the Jury Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer (left) with the winning team from Bosch (from right): Henri Catenos (Executive Vice President Corporate Department Finance, Reporting and Treasury), Patrick Hehl (Senior Manager Corporate Office Finance, Reporting) and Dr. Marco Möhrer (Senior Manager Corporate Office Sustainable Business Management). Photo: Flo Huber

The ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2024 goes to the technology and services company Bosch for the project “myGreenBusiness – Digitalization of EU taxonomy reporting“. The solution, which won the Award at the 48th Congress of Controllers in Munich, improves the management of a sustainable product portfolio, simplifies the implementation of the EU taxonomy for external reporting obligations and supports controllers in their role as management consultants.

“It thus addresses a central pain point for many companies and develops a concrete solution that significantly relieves the burden on controllers and enables them to use the capacities freed up for in-depth analyses and management-related issues,” says Chairman of the Jury Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer, explaining the decision for the winning project on the highly relevant topic of sustainability.

With its controlling solution “myGreenBusiness”, the technology and services company is improving the management and reporting of key sustainability management indicators. At the same time, it makes it easier to implement the external reporting requirements of the EU taxonomy and expand them into a group-wide, digital taxonomy reporting system. On the one hand, the aim is to contribute to the company’s growth targets with sustainability. On the other hand, it is intended to support Bosch in its long-term focus on the balance between economic, ecological and social action.

Integrated view enables holistic control

The central building block for digital taxonomy reporting is the linking of financial and sustainability controlling in one IT solution. The integrated view of the company’s success enables holistic management of the product portfolio and reduces the workload thanks to the high degree of digitalization: previously manual routine activities, such as maintaining traditional Excel spreadsheets, are no longer necessary. Controllers can make the sustainable alignment of their organizational unit’s product portfolio transparent using the taxonomy’s key financial figures – an ideal basis for their role as a business partner to management. “With just a few clicks, we gain insight into our taxonomy key figures along the entire product and service portfolio,” explains Patrick Hehl, Co-Project Manager in the Corporate Office Finance and Reporting at Bosch.

Realization in less than a year

The project team started developing the solution in April 2023 and achieved its goal just a few months later: the gradual rollout to end users began in February 2024. In the final expansion stage, around 950 users across the company in central functions, business units and legal units will work with “myGreenBusiness”. “During development, we were able to draw on the extensive experience we had already gained with digitalization in the financial sector,” says Patrick Hehl, and: “The integration of an existing controlling solution with which developers and users were already familiar was also essential for the rapid success.”

Bosch’s myGreenBusiness combines current requirements

The taxonomy KPIs of sales and investment and operating expenses reflect Bosch’s sustainability performance in accordance with the EU taxonomy in myGreenBusiness. This enables early countermeasures to be taken in the event of deviations from targets. “With the introduction of myGreenBusiness, we can implement the legal requirements of the EU taxonomy more easily. The Group-wide transparency of our sustainable products will also give us a competitive advantage thanks to more efficient processes and the ability to manage the product portfolio holistically,” explains Dr. Marco Möhrer, Co-Project Manager in the Corporate Office Sustainability Business Management at Bosch.

Bringing project experience to the controlling community

Bosch’s own IT solution myGreenBusiness is part of a project that aims to implement the EU Taxonomy and the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) throughout the company. Patrick Hehl emphasizes the advantages of the collaboration: “The jointly designed controlling application shows the great potential offered by the close fusion of the disciplines of controlling, sustainability and finance.” Both co-project managers agree on the importance of overarching teamwork. Dr. Marco Möhrer comments with regard to the award: “Sustainability is a topic that everyone in business is equally committed to. We therefore want to contribute our experience from the project to the controlling community – the ICV Controlling Excellence Award is an incentive for us to do so.”

Austrian Post and Vetter Pharma-Fertigung also impress

The Bosch project beat the submissions from Vetter Pharma-Fertigung GmbH & Co. KG, Ravensburg, and Österreichische Post AG, Vienna, which were also nominated for the ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2024. Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer emphasizes: “We as the Jury are very convinced that the nominated solutions once again stand for excellence in controlling in an exemplary manner and cover the entire spectrum between innovative solutions with exemplary character – in addition to Robert Bosch, Österreichische Post with an agile controlling framework – and successful implementation of integrated corporate management in medium-sized companies such as Vetter Pharma”.

Austrian Post: Agile principles further rolled out in financial work

The controlling team at Austrian Post has been working on an agile framework for the entire Group Controlling department in order to be able to react better and faster to changing conditions. To this end, a new prioritization process for the top issues of the following year, OKRs as a tool for more complex tasks and a so-called “Cycle of Clarity”, which is intended to ensure clearer objectives, were developed. Utz Schäffer praises the fact that “step by step, the agile principles are now also being rolled out to other aspects of work in the finance department” and: “As a result, we are not only seeing shorter process throughput times and progress in process and project quality in Austrian Post’s controlling department. The agile transformation has also led to more personal responsibility, new development paths for controllers and a stronger focus on strategic topics.”

Vetter Pharma production: Consistent, comprehensive approach impresses

Vetter Pharma-Fertigung has set itself the task of operationalizing the Vetter Finance Strategy 2025 using the example of integrated corporate management, with the aim of further developing a holistic strategic and operational management concept based on fully integrated and automated data. The concept includes rolling 24-month sales planning based on capacity-tested production planning across all stages of the value chain, a uniform, consistent information base, interactive dashboards, process mining and analytics modules and, last but not least, a differentiation of controller roles. What convinced the Award Jury about this project: “Every single component in this concept is not fundamentally new or spectacularly innovative and has never been seen before. However, we were impressed by the consistent and comprehensive approach in the context of a medium-sized company”, because: “As a result, Vetter Pharma has seen a significant reduction in corporate management costs, higher data quality, transparency and acceptance as well as better interaction with management”, summarizes Utz Schäffer.

The Merck KGaA team has won the ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2023. Photo: Flo Huber

Munich, May 15, 2023. “Enabling High-Impact Culture in Financial Steering”. This is the title of the project at Merck KGaA, which won the prestigious ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2023. The Controlling team has internalized the company-wide maxim of promoting the entrepreneurial thinking of every employee and developed the Finance department into a trusted strategic advisor.

The new high-impact culture at Merck is generally based on the desire to develop an environment in which every employee can contribute to joint success. A clear focus, reduced complexity and continuously improved products are the basis. The focus is on tasks and measures that achieve the greatest impact. The Controlling team has also adopted this approach, which was proclaimed company-wide at the end of 2021, with its “Enabling High-Impact Culture in Financial Steering” project. In order to modernize the financial processes and tools, key elements of bottom-up budget planning have been abolished. Instead, decisions on measures are made on the basis of continuous forecasts and business priorities. Resource allocation remains flexible because it is independent of fixed budget schedules.

However, employee behavior and working methods are essential for successful implementation. “We have to be prepared to question our status quo, learn new skills and think entrepreneurially. To be successful, we not only need the right processes and tools such as technologies or incentives – we also need to promote the right mindset among our employees,” summarizes Kathrin Montry, Senior Principal Controlling Expert and Product Owner of the LEAP project. Head of Group Controlling & Risk Management Alexander Lind specifies the implementation for his division. Based on the Beyond Budgeting model, target setting and forecasting are being “unbundled” and resource allocation, performance management and behavioral and working methods are being changed. “We trust the talent and passion of our curious minds. That’s why we create an environment in which they can develop their potential and achieve great things,” says Lind.

This “radical approach” in dealing with the experience that traditional planning processes are reaching their limits also impressed the Jury team led by Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer, as did the fact that the winning project is not an isolated solution for controlling, but is embedded in a larger cultural transformation process. “At this point, some of you may think back 15 or 20 years to when the Beyond Budgeting concept came to German-speaking countries and was also met with great rejection here at the ICV. “Beyond Budgeting – No thanks!” was the battle cry back then. That was a long time ago, and now Merck is on the stage as a company that has dared to make a somewhat more fundamental change to corporate management in an environment that has changed considerably since then,” said Schäffer, Director of the Institute of Management and Control (IMC) at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, summarizing the award-worthy achievement during the laudatory speech in Munich on Monday.

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA: “Thinking in experiments instead of budgets” with the digital roadmap for Group Financial Controlling

By nominating Henkel’s solution, the Jury has taken an unusual approach to date, as it is not a specific project, but a digital roadmap. This will be used to prioritize and implement the various initiatives in Group Financial Controlling.

The company is always aware of the fact that decisions for or against initiatives and the assessment of their prospects of success must be made even when resources are scarce and in the face of crises and a volatile environment. Henkel’s Group Financial Controlling has developed an innovative and pragmatic approach here, praises laudator Utz Schäffer, because the roadmap combines several agile and iterative initiatives that are scaled up if successful. The jury was impressed by this “thinking in terms of experiments rather than budgets”. In addition to increasing efficiency through automation, it is important that the initiatives also aim to create greater value through better analyses (“From Data to Insights”) and comprehensive upskilling of the central team.

This gives Henkel something that every medium-sized and larger company absolutely needs, especially in times of scarce resources: a systematic, but at the same time flexible and pragmatic approach to prioritizing and implementing the various initiatives, says Utz Schäffer about the transferability of the nominated solution. Read the interview in the award section of the ICV website icv-controlling.com with Yu-Kyung Rasche, Head of Data & Analytics, Global Business Controlling/AFB at Henkel.

“Predictive forecasting – from concept to strategic impact”: TX Group has completed what is still an unfinished challenge for many others

As in Merck’s winning project, the starting point is the realization that the forecasting process reaches its limits in a dynamic environment and ties up enormous resources. The TX Group has a solution. At its core, it consists of the introduction of predictive analytics to support the creation of forecasts. However, the nomination was not in recognition of the technical solution or the good algorithm, emphasized Utz Schäffer in his laudatory speech. Rather, it was the fast, inexpensive implementation without external support in a medium-sized company that was convincing. Especially as the TX Group’s controlling team did not end with the improved generation of the forecast, but also used the change to further develop the corresponding controlling processes and to strengthen business partnering, and “did exactly what many of you are facing as a challenge in an exemplary manner”, Schäffer classifies the significance of the project as a blueprint for other companies.

The winning team from Deutsche Post DHL Group with Dr. Klaus Hufschlag (center), Klaus Kenfenheuer (2nd from left) and Martin Momberg (2nd from right), together with ICV Chairman of the Board Prof. Dr. Heimo Losbichler (right) and the Chairman of the Jury of the ICV Controlling Excellence Awards, Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer. Photo: Florian Huber

Munich, 9.5.2022. The ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2022 goes to Deutsche Post DHL Group, which beat SAP SE and Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co KG in the final three places for the prestigious ICV Award. “The winning project deals with the integration of ESG dimensions into controlling and corporate management in a very convincing way,” was the Jury’s reasoning for its final decision.

“Integration of sustainability goals in controlling at Deutsche Post DHL Group” is the title of the winning project. The initial impetus for this came in March 2021 with the communication of the new ESG roadmap within the Group. Deutsche Post DHL Group’s Finance department then assumed responsibility for both internal and external ESG reporting. Employees from the former Carbon Accounting team in Finance, Sustainability Communications and Group Strategy were bundled into a new department, which has since been responsible for reporting processes and controlling for all three ESG dimensions. The project team began by translating the Group’s ESG objectives into operational and financial targets and identifying meaningful and reliable key figures for reporting and managing the ESG roadmap. At the same time, a comprehensive internal reporting system for ESG indicators and ESG measures was established. It is now regularly included in business reviews and performance meetings. Anchoring it in the internal control system ensures quality. Finally, the process for investment decisions has been expanded to include demanding ESG criteria. “Deutsche Post DHL Group now has something that is still a dream of the future for most companies: a largely complete controlling system for managing ESG measures that is embedded in the financial organization,” said Chairman of the Jury Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer, Director of the Institute of Management and Control (IMC) at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, in his laudatory speech in Munich on Monday.

Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co. KG tackles real-life day-to-day controller work with rolled-up sleeves, its own on-board resources and learning by doing

The solution from the medium-sized company Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co KG, which was also nominated, is aimed at a standardized product cost calculation process with simulations and scenario calculations. “The real-life day-to-day work of the controller was the starting point here,” says Utz Schäffer, summarizing and specifying the topic: Product cost determination and the associated reporting was very time-consuming due to country-, group- and sometimes even individual-specific solutions. To solve this problem, the Phoenix Contact team first set out to find a solution that was already available on the market. “And now it’s getting exciting,” says Schäffer enthusiastically, because: “This will be discarded in the end. Instead, the team developed its own database-based simulation software, which can be used to carry out standardized manufacturing cost simulations and profitability estimates for products and production process changes”. According to Schäffer, the result is not only impressive due to its content, but also due to its high level of acceptance, simplified use and greater use of simulations with significantly reduced effort. “The remarkable thing for the Jury is not so much the technological or conceptual novelty of this solution, but the exemplary approach with rolled-up sleeves, own on-board resources and intensive learning by doing!”

SAP SE turns buzzword agility into a journey towards standardization with good suggestions for controlling in other companies

The aim of the project “Agile Controlling: New Delivery Model for Controlling”, which was also nominated, was to make controlling at SAP more agile and flexible while efficiently meeting internal customer requirements. “Let’s be honest: agility is also a much-used buzzword in the context of controlling, which always causes raised eyebrows and a lot of mistrust,” says Utz Schäffer, but: “That’s exactly why we on the Jury find the solution proposal submitted by the SAP team so convincing!”. After all, the project shows a journey of no less than almost four years in the controlling area with a large number of building blocks through to the standardization of requirements and the provision of services for various internal controlling customer groups based on this. “We as the Jury believe that the overall package of the SAP solution contains many good suggestions for controlling in other companies.”

The 2021 ICV Controlling Excellence Award goes to Robert Bosch GmbH for the “Controller of the Future – People make the Difference!” concept. The technology and services company impressed the Jury with the development of new controller roles to support its own transformation. The ICV also honored a project by A1 Telekom Austria, “Finance Analytics @ A1 Austria”, a process for the introduction of advanced analytics, and the project “Introduction of Product Lifecycle Controlling in the Robotics segment of KUKA” by KUKA Deutschland GmbH. The award was presented on April 26, 2021 at Europe’s leading controlling conference, the 45th Congress of Controllers, which took place online for the first time.

The Expert Jury for the ICV Controlling Excellence Award, made up of practitioners and professors alike, is headed by the Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer, from WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, Institute of Management and Controlling, Vallendar. “Despite the tense coronavirus situation, we were once again delighted to receive many high-quality applications,” says the Chairman of the Jury.

First place went to Bosch for a “very convincing solution for deriving and introducing new controller roles”. The Jury did not want to differentiate between second and third place for the two other award-winning solutions from KUKA with its solution for product lifecycle controlling and from A1 Telekom Austria with a process for the introduction of advanced analytics. KUKA’s solution was recognized as an industry-specific, rather traditional, but all the more convincing “heart and soul” project. With the award for the A1 Telekom solution from Austria, the Jury sent a signal about how important it is for the ICV to open up to analytics.

ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2021 to Bosch

The starting point for the winning project of the technology and services company Bosch is the fact that the company is also developing its controlling as digitalization progresses. The controllers are using new management concepts, methods, systems and tools to support the operational business units in their transition to becoming the leading provider of the Internet of Things and mobility solutions. As the digital transformation is also leading to new business models for Bosch, it is an urgent task for the controllers to support their development and expansion with appropriate, adapted and new management tools.

This also includes effectively managing and mapping the increasingly cross-unit business. At the same time, the controllers in their own functional area are increasing their efficiency through process automation with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the creation of automated forecasts with predictive analytics, e.g. for sales, and the use of highly integrated reporting systems with customer-oriented dashboards.

As part of the concept, Bosch developed five new roles for the company’s 4,000 controllers and has been implementing them since the start of 2021. In addition to the familiar Business Partner profile, there are also Business Analyst, Subject Matter Expert, Governor and Data Scientist. A specific skills profile and a corresponding training curriculum have been created for each of these roles.

Particularly noteworthy for the Jury is that:

Bosch is thus proactively addressing the upcoming change in roles and the differentiation of the traditional controller role that is required in large companies in particular;
the role and competence profiles were derived in a very well-founded manner; last but not least, the results of internal customer surveys, the exchange with other companies, the collection of internal best practices and scientific studies were incorporated. The concept was also well anchored internally: the Finance Transformation Working Group, the Finance Controlling Academy network and the Finance Transformation Board in particular were closely involved in its creation, so that different perspectives were incorporated at an early stage and project-critical issues could be addressed;
the solution is not limited to new role and competence profiles, but also includes a comprehensive implementation concept. In addition to classroom training and webinars, the training portfolio also includes numerous autodidactic offerings such as web-based training, impulse talks and videos. In addition, comprehensive communication material was developed and systematic tracking of the implementation steps, including lessons learned workshops, was planned.
According to the Jury, this last point is crucial: “Successful implementation is the be-all and end-all of such concepts; the gap between fine Sunday rhetoric about the role of the controller and what actually happens in day-to-day operations is often too wide.”

The Chairman of the Jury, Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer, explains: “All in all, a very convincing solution that addresses the upcoming role change in an exemplary manner.” ICV members – whether in large or small companies – could immediately adopt either the entire implementation concept or individual modules. Or, to quote one Jury member: “I wish I’d had this last year when I was working on the topic in our company.”

The Bosch Group’s core project team, led by Sven Grandi, CFO of the Bosch Global Services Solutions division, consisted of: Stefanie Florian, Expert for Competence Management in Controlling, Finance and Controlling Academy; Dieter Kirschmann, Head of Finance and Controlling Academy; Moritz Möbus, Commercial Officer in the Bosch Global Service Solutions division.

A1 Telekom: “Exemplary approach with rolled-up sleeves”

According to the Jury, A1 Telekom Austria’s solution also addresses a highly topical issue: “How do I bring my controlling department closer to the topic of advanced analytics?” It should be particularly emphasized that Telekom Austria’s approach offers a “hands-on” approach, which aims to get into “learning by doing” as quickly as possible, even with manageable on-board resources and without the use of external staff, and thus to establish advanced analytics and the necessary skills in controlling and in the A1 Finance Area.

Specifically, a small team of controllers, data scientists and data engineers was put together in 2019 to identify the first use cases in the areas of credit checks for contract customers, forecasting demand by device type and revenue, early detection of incorrect values in the revenue base and monthly variance analysis, and implemented these E2E projects themselves. The A1 Telekom Austria project team worked according to the basic principles of the agile Scrum method, which was, however, individually adapted to the project requirements. In addition to information events, the sharing of know-how required to achieve the objectives was carried out pragmatically and purposefully by sharing the successful use cases. And this is exactly where the Jury came full circle: “The remarkable thing about Telekom Austria’s approach is not the one or other particularly impressive use case – similar things can now also be found elsewhere – but the exemplary approach with rolled-up sleeves, own on-board resources and intensive learning by doing.”

In total, a positive cash flow effect of EUR 3.5 million is expected by 2023 from the five initially implemented advanced analytics use cases. Sonja Wallner, CFO A1 Austria, praises the “Finance Analytics@A1 Austria” project as a great success: “Data centricity is an essential part of the A1 and Finance Strategy. With the ‘Finance Analytics @A1 Austria’ project, we have taken important steps in this direction and made it our goal to promote advanced analytics in the Finance Unit and establish it as an essential part of our finance work. We have deliberately chosen a cross-functional team approach and given the team a great deal of freedom in terms of prioritization and working methods. The qualitative and quantitative value contribution of the project has far exceeded my expectations.”

Gerhard Partl, Head of Collection & Fraud A1 Austria, is also satisfied: “Thanks to the collaboration with the Finance Analytics team, we were able to achieve significant improvements in the Solvency Check in my area of responsibility. As part of ESA (“Enhanced Solvency Analytics”), state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms (Log. Regression, XG Boost) were established, which enable us to make a better assessment and accuracy with regard to the acceptance/rejection of customers. This enables us as A1 to sustainably optimize bad debt.”

The project team, led by Michael Haselmayer, Finance Controlling, A1 Telekom Austria AG, Vienna, included Martin Faber, Adrian Maksymowic, Georg Kern, Harald Gamper, Lukas Drescher and Christian Rezek.

KUKA project: “This kind of initiative is needed in controlling!”

KUKA Deutschland GmbH’s solution includes the development of a product lifecycle controlling system in KUKA’s Robotics segment. This generates information which, together with the technical infrastructure from the implemented data model, enables automated reporting across the product lifecycle and functional silos. The corresponding data supports sales, production and investment planning and enables fact-based decisions in the management of R&D and the existing product portfolio. The tools and methods of the approach are now also being adopted by other areas of the company.

What particularly impressed the Jury: “In 2016 and 2018, two corresponding projects had already been started and had to be stopped without any results. A core team from the two applicants for the award, both employees of the ‘Portfolio and R&D Controlling Team’, then relaunched the topic as an agile project under their own responsibility, drove it forward and led it to success. This kind of initiative is needed in controlling!”

After the extremely successful pilot launch in 2019, the organization was quickly convinced of the need for product lifecycle controlling. This made it easier for the team to roll out the approach further. The tools developed are widely accepted and used, and the data collected is made available in an automated reporting system. Wolfgang Mayer, CTO KUKA Robotics, explains: “The business cases help to prioritize R&D projects and the use of (always scarce) resources. With the transparency generated from the business cases, we can visualize all R&D projects according to products and customer requirements. In addition, we now understand which costs are incurred for cash-flow generating products and which are required for supporting products. However, the greatest added value comes from the ‘sign-off’ at Gate 2 (start of development): at this point, all stakeholders sit down together and decide to start product development.”

Andreas Wolferseder and Reinoud van der Vliet realized the award-winning project for KUKA Deutschland GmbH.

The ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2020 goes to BASF with the project: Predictive Analytics approach for financial forecasting on Operating Division level called PACE – Predictive Analytics Estimate.

The Award winner’s project dealt with a “hot topic” – at least for large companies – according to the Award Jury in its decision to select BASF as the winner from all the applicants: “Forecasts are playing an increasingly important role in the management of companies – even before the pandemic – and cause a considerable amount of work in controlling”. In this respect, it makes sense to try to make use of the opportunities offered by digitalization. With the implementation of the award-winning project, BASF has managed to fully automate forecasting at Group level, with a forecasting accuracy that is at least as good as that of manual forecasts, emphasized the suitably impressed Jury. The high speed and the savings in personnel costs do not have to be bought at the expense of quality. According to the award winner, PACE was created by BASF using only on-board resources; a separate budget was not required. After around three years of experience, it had already been established as a standard process in the company. Hardly any other company can currently claim this: “BASF’s application is also exemplary in this respect,” summarizes Chairman of the Jury Prof. Jürgen Weber, who was in office for the last time in this function: With the announcement of the 2021 award, he is handing over the reins to his WHU colleague Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer.

In 2020, the Award Jury once again received a wide range of high-calibre applications – with a clear focus on digitalization. In the end, A1 Telekom Austria and Diginet GmbH & Co. KG were nominated along with BASF.

The A1 Telekom Austria AG project was about identifying the necessary measures to improve working capital and warehousing. According to the Jury, what ultimately made the application worthy of an award was the agile approach to the project. SCRUM and design thinking were also suitable instruments for this issue. The project was also carried out with the strong involvement of the controllers from the initial phase through to implementation. “It not only led to the desired project success, but also improved cooperation between the departments. It can therefore be used as a model for other projects in the financial sector. Anyone in controlling who has not yet gained experience with agile techniques should do so as soon as possible!”, is Prof. Weber’s call.

The nominated project by Diginet GmbH & Co KG (known under the brand name Pixum) is entitled: “Vision Team 42 – future-proof controlling and modern data solutions from a single source”. The aim was to standardize and unify processes as far as possible in the Group with a heterogeneous controlling landscape, also in order to create the opportunity for intensive benchmarking. This required a fundamental reorganization of the controlling department as well as extensive system changes and the introduction of new data science solutions. “The Jury was just as impressed by the willingness to question everything that already existed as it was by the consistent reorganization of the entire controlling system,” said the Chairman of the Jury.

On May 13, the “ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2019” was presented to Unitymedia GmbH at Europe’s leading controlling conference in Munich. The Award was presented at the 44th Congress of Controllers for the solution: “Value Steering Roadmap, establishing value-oriented management at Unitymedia”.

The judges nominated the work of Unitymedia, Munich Re and Metro for the award. In the case of the Unitymedia solution, the Jury recognized how the idea of management by customer value was implemented. Previously, the company had been managed via products without taking into account the interconnectedness of the products with the customers.

During the changeover, various system-related difficulties were overcome and agile techniques were used and modified. The Jury judged Munich RE’s solution for setting up a “digital finance platform” to be “very well developed” and a “successful digitalization project”. The solution was more convincing because of the breadth achieved than because of individual innovative ideas, as was the professionalism of the approach, which also included an evaluation and very sensible next steps.

The topic of the nominated Metro solution can be functionally assigned to procurement controlling, which, according to Chairman of the Jury Prof. Weber, has so far been rather underexposed. Here, the focus is on the topic of “data quality” and, in addition to internal simplifications, the solution would enable new additional revenues. “This makes the work an ideal case for digitalization: internal process improvements can lead to new business.”

The Jury’s decision is based on the joint Controller’s Mission Statement of the ICV and the International Group of Controlling (IGC). According to this, controller work is exemplary if controllers achieve a noticeable change, the solution has been tried and tested in practice and this change not only affects controlling itself, but also makes the company more successful overall. The change must also have been developed internally by the controllers and be innovative.

The Chairman of the Jury, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Weber, says the level of applicatons was very good, “even better than last year. In 2019, the applicants included various ‘big names’, but smaller companies were not missing either. The focus in terms of content was on digitalization. A lot is obviously happening here – finally! So we can be very satisfied overall.”

Unitymedia in Cologne is one of the leading cable network operators in Germany and a subsidiary of Liberty Global. The company reaches 13 million households in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg with its broadband cable services. Electricity (Steering Roadmap) is a joint project of Controlling and the business units with the aim of establishing value-oriented management. New perspectives are to be created in order to enable Unitymedia to manage in line with current market developments. This requires replacing the volume-driven use of capital with value-generating capital. The prerequisite for this is that the expected added value of this transaction is known before the targeted use of capital.

The basis for standardized value-based management is developed from the data-driven project Strom. In addition to the primary goal of customer value-oriented management, the data model combines all relevant business drivers under one roof in controlling. The management tool creates transparency and enables Unitymedia to answer relevant questions from various dimensions.

Unitymedia GmbH: “Value Steering Roadmap, establishment of value-oriented management at Unitymedia”

Value-based provisioning can thus unleash great savings potential. The main motivation here is to understand which customer events influence the value of the customer and which parameters can be used to optimize these changes. The customer journey, which describes the cycles of the customer journey, is a strategic concept in marketing. Current connects the control world with the customer journey in a management system. The customer experience is reflected in the processes and will improve in the medium and long term.

Thanks to Strom, Unitymedia understands the phases of the customer journey and can align the company’s activities with the customer’s needs. Strom works according to the agile project approach. It shows how cross-functional collaboration can become a success factor. Since May 8, 2018, the 13-member project team has been working on developing a holistic database in order to establish customer value-oriented management.

Munich Re: “Digitalization and automation of the finance area with the help of a virtual data platform (Digital Finance Platform)”

Munich Re’s finance departments are faced with the challenge of preparing complex analyses for the Board of Management under time pressure. This requires a large amount of data to be obtained and prepared from internal and external data sources, which is time-consuming and error-prone due to the high manual effort involved. This led to the goal of automating these processes in order to improve the quality of the analyses.

An interdisciplinary team of IT and controlling experts developed a virtual data platform (“Digital Finance Platform”) that enables the fully automated transfer of data from various internal and external data sources (e.g. SAP BW, Bundesbank) into the analytical models. The analysis results can thus be created automatically and saved in a database with a single “click” and made available to the Management Board in real time via a dashboard.

The project objectives are to improve operational decisions through more data-supported, more timely, analytically broadened and improved recommendations for action to the Management Board. In addition, the existing reporting and product landscape will be made more efficient and less complex. During the design phase, attention was paid to creating an IT architecture that is as lightweight and easy to maintain as possible. Data is accessed in real time against the source systems so that no separate data storage is required apart from the analysis results. Furthermore, the platform is open to almost any source system and a variety of analysis tools.

The platform is already being used internally by over 100 users in a wide range of applications in both financial and business areas, both nationally and in the Group’s international units. The use of the platform is not limited to the insurance industry or to Munich Re and can in principle also be used in all other companies.

Metro AG: “Brand Data Excellence – A global solution for business and finance”

Metro is a leading international wholesaler. Worldwide, 24 million customers buy food and non-food goods here. The customers are independent entrepreneurs or small kiosks. Metro is active in 36 countries, including 25 countries with wholesale stores, and employs more than 150,000 people worldwide.

Branded products and, increasingly, private label products, their development, sales, supplier analyses and internal reporting are essential for the business. The brand information on the individual products, which was already contained in the item description, could not be used. The formulated need: to create a brand listing that shows all the information in order to create quick, simple reporting, enable data processing and obtain a global view of the brand performance of the individual products, for Metro and the suppliers.

The solution: a tool with consistent brand information that is linked to the item listing in the merchandise management system. The brand data management tool (BDM tool) developed by Controlling brings together all key brand information. The BDM tool helps Metro to use the brand information in several ways. This gives various departments such as Purchasing and Controlling transparency about the operating sales, earnings development and market share of each brand, internationally across all 25 Metro wholesale countries.

Evaluations are now possible that help the individual departments to understand how each individual brand is performing and to make assortment decisions. Knowledge about the performance of the individual brands also helps Metro in supplier negotiations. Brand information is an important part of all digital interactions with customers. The entire company, from supply management to private label management, marketing and customer relationship management as well as controlling, benefits from the project, both locally and internationally. The single brand attribute, directly in the source system, ensures benefits for all departments.

The “ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2018” was presented to Robert Bosch GmbH, Powertrain Solutions Division (Diesel Systems), Stuttgart, for the solution “Big data-based approach to optimizing net working capital at Bosch Powertrain Solutions” at Europe’s largest controlling conference, the 43rd Congress of Controllers, on April 23, 2018.

The Jury of the International Association of Controllers (ICV), headed by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Institute of Management and Controlling (IMC) and Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, had nominated three candidates for the Award: Brau Union Österreich AG, Linz; Robert Bosch GmbH, Powertrain Solutions Division (Diesel Systems), Stuttgart; Verband der Ersatzkassen e.V. (vdek), Berlin. Nominating and deciding on the winner was a difficult task, reports Professor Jürgen Weber, because “the quality of the submissions this year was higher than ever before”. In the end, the winner was “a pioneering solution from the field of ‘digitalization’, which is extremely topical for the entire controlling community”, according to the Jury.

The winning solution from Robert Bosch GmbH

Robert Bosch GmbH, Powertrain Solutions, has won the “ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2018” with the solution “Big data-based approach to optimizing net working capital at Bosch Powertrain Solutions”.
Economic conditions are changing ever faster and are also presenting controlling in the Powertrain Solutions division of Robert Bosch GmbH with the challenge of adequately adapting controlling methods and processes. In order to establish controllers as business partners in line with the company’s own controller mission statement, efficiency increases and a higher degree of automation in basic processes must be achieved. For these reasons, a digitalization roadmap was developed in the Powertrain Solutions division with the aim of using big data tools in controlling across the board by 2021. In addition to adapting the IT infrastructure, this required additional skills for controllers in dealing with big data. Finally, organizational adjustments were also required with regard to long-term collaboration in cross-functional teams to analyse and process the results from the big data applications. In order to gain experience with the use of big data and the resulting challenges using a practical example, an initial project with a big data and analytics tool was launched in 2017. This closed a previously existing gap in controlling in terms of handling and the associated working capital optimization using modern algorithms. The project has already uncovered target conflicts within working capital, analyzed realizable potential and recorded employees’ experience in working with BI tools. Using the daily updated, detailed data from the Big Data & Analytics tool, Bosch Powertrain Solutions can now uncover potential and, with the help of alert functions, promptly take targeted countermeasures with the affected departments in the event of deviations.

The nominated solution from Brau Union Österreich AG

The solution “KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Framework in the Supply Chain of Brau Union Österreich AG” was also nominated as an Award winner.
The controllers as business partners at Brau Union Österreich AG want to increase the financial knowledge of their management partners and their departments and thus promote cooperation within the company, especially in the supply chain. To this end, a tool has been created with which all those involved can recognize their contribution to the company’s success and identify control variables. This also enhances the understanding of financial data in operational areas. The KPI framework is integrated into the governance cycle and is therefore a fixed component for managing the supply chain at various levels. It is not only the first report in the supply chain to link production and logistics KPIs with each other; the supply chain now also has a clear presentation of logical links between the KPIs. This enables cause-and-effect analyses for each KPI and employees can understand their contribution to the company’s results. Everyone in the supply chain, from the SC director to the store floor employee, can benefit from this report and gain additional financial knowledge. The framework is used in most control-relevant areas of the supply chain.

The nominated solution of the Verband der Ersatzkassen e. V. (vdek)

Also nominated for the Award was the solution: “SHI planning tool as a vdek controlling solution for planning financial development in statutory health insurance”.
The GKV planning tool was commissioned by vdek and created by Barmer as a joint project of all substitute health insurance funds – Barmer, Die Techniker, DAK Gesundheit, Kaufmännische Krankenkasse, HEK Hanseatische Krankenkasse and hkk Handelskrankenkasse Bremen. The health insurance funds need an instrument for financial planning. The individual health insurance fund planning must be flanked by a planning of the financial development for the SHI system, as this is also the basis for the financial development of the individual health insurance funds. This is exactly what the nominated solution offers. With the new SHI planning tool, the project team has succeeded in creating a tool and an overall process that incorporates almost all information relating to the health insurance system in Germany. The central variable here is the cost-covering contribution rate to be paid by employees and employers in a medium-term plan. At the heart of the controlling solution are the completely new financial scoreboards, which comprehensively describe the financial resources of the overall system in all areas at key figure level. The SHI planning tool provides the cost-covering contribution rate for the SHI system as the central piece of information. This is then used primarily at individual fund level to create short and medium-term financial plans and develop pricing strategies. In addition, the results are required both for political discussions in the health insurance system and for an internal early warning system and competition regulations specific to individual health insurance funds.

The ICV Controller Award 2017 goes to EDEKA Südwest. The “Corporate Development” team from the Controlling division received the award on Monday (May 15) at the 42nd Congress of Controllers in Munich for “an innovative, pioneering solution to comprehensively change the management system and controlling”.

EDEKA Südwest is a group of companies with a wholesale business, various divisions and subsidiaries whose success depends to a large extent on the complete networking and coordination of management and control systems. Very often, quick decisions are required, the effects of which must be assessed and recognizable in all directions. The new, award-winning solution, known as the “development model”, provides EDEKA Südwest with a central management tool. It enables the division managers to manage and control strategic goals and measures.

The “development model” helps to break down the strategy into strategic goals for the following years and assign planned measures from the various areas to these goals. In addition, measures can be assigned to the existing management systems and also immediately assigned to (planned) budget values and cost centers or investments. They can therefore also be used as a precursor and basis for annual corporate planning. Each business unit manager receives a complete overview of the measures from the entire network that affect them – also in the coming financial years.

During the development of the solution, individual measures from EDEKA Südwest’s divisions and subsidiaries were identified as the connecting element of the systems. With the Award-winning “development model”, measures are transferred from the division-internal handling to a central tool.

A key success factor in the development and introduction was a “cautious” approach; dialog, feedback, openness to the requirements but also to the concerns of the business unit managers. For the project initiators in the “Corporate Development” department, it was essential to involve all divisions.

The Chairman of the ICV Jury, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Weber, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, explains: “It is easier to formulate an ambitious strategy than to put it into practice. Pragmatic approaches that can be used in day-to-day management are needed, especially when it comes to translating strategy into concrete actions.” He describes the fact that in many places strategic management is still detached from or insufficiently linked to operational management as a “well-known shortcoming in practice”.

The 2017 Controller Award winner demonstrates the best way to achieve integration: “an innovative solution that provides direction for a comprehensive change in the management system and controlling”, says Prof. Weber. The 2017 Award-winning solution is characterized by “easy access and gradual growth”: “Integration of existing tools; start on an Excel basis, then transition to a proprietary software solution; small scope at the beginning, then learning and expanding as the associated benefits are recognized”. They also emphasized the allowance of department-specific procedures and speeds as well as the inclusion of sustainability goals.

For the Jury of the International Association of Controllers (ICV), three further criteria were decisive in their decision. In addition to the sustainability of the change brought about by the solution, they also saw the benefits for the entire company, not just for controlling – a key criterion, as the success of controlling and the success of a company are closely linked. Thirdly, the solution was designed and implemented by the controllers themselves. This is important for the judges, as the sustainability of a solution is particularly at risk if the change is strongly driven from outside.
This year’s jury, headed by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Weber, was made up of the following members: Hillert Onnen (formerly BLG, ICV Board of Trustees member), Roland Iff (Geberit International AG), Hubert Tretter (t4t Management Consulting) and Prof. Dr. Andreas Seufert (Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, Head of ICV Expert Work Group “BI/Big Data and Controlling”).

EDEKA Südwest
EDEKA Südwest is celebrating its 90th birthday this year. With consolidated external sales of 8.4 billion euros in 2016, it is the second largest of seven regional companies in the national EDEKA network. The business area covers the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate with parts of Hesse and Bavaria. EDEKA Südwest operates food wholesale and retail businesses as well as upstream food production operations. The business area has around 1,300 food stores, and around 1,000 stores are operated by independent retailers. Around 44,000 employees work for EDEKA Südwest, including the employees of independent retailers, 2,650 of whom are trainees.

The 2016 Controller Award goes to the Controlling team at Covestro Deutschland AG. On Monday (April 25), the EUR 5,000 prize was awarded at the 41st Congress of Controllers in Munich for the project: “Comprehensive redesign of the entire controlling system as a result of the carve-out of Covestro from the Bayer Group”.

The Award was presented by ICV Chairman Siegfried Gänßlen and the Chairman of the Jury Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, Otto Beisheim School of Management, to Wolfgang Zellerhoff, Global Accounting & Controlling, on behalf of the global controlling functions he manages within the Covestro Group. After the Award ceremony, Zellerhoff presented the Award-winning solution to the 580 members of the audience in the plenary session.

Exemplary carve-out leads to exemplary change in controlling
In his laudatory speech, Prof. Weber praised the project as an “innovative, pioneering solution in the area of a comprehensive change to the management system and controlling”. It had succeeded in making a very successful controlling system even better. Following an exemplary successful carve-out, the Covestro controllers – who had previously been released into the capital market as a subgroup controlling unit within the Bayer Group – have mastered the new, major challenges in an exemplary manner.

When a company is exposed to the capital market “from one day to the next”, explained the Chairman of the Jury, answers are needed as to how best to do justice to the capital market in controlling. The controlling team at Covestro Deutschland AG had found equally convincing answers to this question as to the question of how to carry out a comprehensive system check and a consistent system change despite the highly complex tasks involved in the IPO. It was shown in exemplary fashion how such a process should be organized, which pitfalls should be avoided, which barriers need to be overcome and which steps need to be taken.

Covestro solution with a number of exemplary features
The solution of the 2016 Controller Award winner Covestro is characterized by a number of exemplary features, praised the ICV Chairman of the Jury. For example, a very balanced relationship was established between short-term pragmatic solutions for the IPO process and a holistic visionary design of the long-term management and controlling landscape in the company. The transition from the limited task portfolio of sub-group controlling to a professional, capital market-capable group controlling function was also successful.

In addition, the award winners have found a holistic approach to the professionalization of management & controlling; an exemplary combination of controlling identity (role & claim) – management approach – efficient & effective organization – processes – personnel and community development. According to Prof. Jürgen Weber, the Covestro controllers have focused in an exemplary manner: on the areas with the greatest value contribution or on the topics with high earnings leverage and previously low controlling coverage.

The ICV Jury described the 2016 Award-winning solution as innovative: the controlling team actively addressed innovation topics for management & controlling, e.g. volatility management in controlling.

Finally, another decision criterion spoke in favor of Covestro Deutschland AG: Controlling had a driving role, pushing forward interface issues such as the design of a new incentive system or strategic planning.

The 2015 Controller Award goes to RWE AG in Essen. An interdisciplinary project team led by Dr. Peter Scherpereel, Head of Controlling Generation & Trading, investigated the influence of “biases”, mental simplifications, on decision-making processes and developed techniques to improve the quality of decisions. On April 20, the International Association of Controllers (ICV) awarded the EUR 5,000 prize for this innovative and exemplary change project on behavior-oriented controlling at the 40th Congress of Controllers.

In the project, behavior-oriented controlling aspects that had previously been predominant in theory were transferred to decision-making processes in practice and concrete improvement measures were developed. The starting point of the project was reduced expectations regarding the profitability of some investments made in the past, which, in addition to significantly changed framework conditions, were also due to project delays and budget overruns, among other things. The focus was on analyzing the causes and developing and implementing measures to improve future decisions. The basis for the investigations was the concept of so-called “cognitive biases”, i.e. “shortcuts” or “mental simplifications” in decision-making that can lead to wrong decisions. The ICV has been working on the topic of “Behavioral Controlling” with its Think Tank since 2011 in order to develop practical knowledge. Findings from psychology, which show that rationality is often influenced by biases, have provided important impetus for dealing with behavioral aspects of controlling. Laying the foundations for better decisions.The realization that biases as part of the human mindset cannot be eliminated, but that awareness of their existence and their effects is an important basis for better decisions, also plays a decisive role in the RWE project that has now been awarded the prize.

The project team, consisting of Dr. Peter Scherpereel, Julian Gaul, Jan Lozek and Diana Rauhut, initially used sample projects to analyze the underlying decision-making processes in order to determine whether and which biases are particularly relevant in the RWE Group. Subsequent workshops, initially with top management, raised awareness of the issue. Techniques to reduce the impact of biases were then developed with the involvement of top management. To implement structural countermeasures in the organization, these were initially tested in several pilots. Special workshops on the subject of biases were developed to familiarize management and employees in the Group with the topic.

In addition, the techniques used to reduce biases are now made transparent at every Board meeting. The sustainability of the workshop content is supported by an easy-to-understand brochure with background information and detailed explanations of countermeasures. In addition to the implementation of structural measures, the key results achieved include the cultural change that has been initiated in terms of open discussion of critical issues. Biases influence the behavior of managers and controllers. Biases occur in all phases of controlling processes and influence the behavior of managers and controllers alike. Controllers must be aware of this. Although there is a broad consensus in the scientific community about the existence of biases, only a few solutions have been proposed to date.

Creating an awareness of the problem is the first step towards a solution. In this respect, the 2015 Controller Award winner’s solution is of great importance to the controlling community. In the Dream Car Report of the ICV Think Tank from 2012, “What makes controllers successful(-er)? | It’s all about behavior!”, states: “The function of the controller is to support the manager’s decision-making and behavioral control. Traditional decision-oriented controlling concepts assume that providing managers with all decision-relevant information and the necessary methods and tools is sufficient for them to make optimal decisions in line with the company’s objectives. Behavioral orientation, on the other hand, takes motivational characteristics (deficits in will) and cognitive limitations (deficits in ability) of the manager and the controller into account in the context of decision support and behavior control.” Cognitive limitations would cause skill deficits in managers and controllers. The focus on skill deficits has led to a stronger behavioral orientation in controlling in recent years.

Hamburg-based EliteMedianet GmbH, operator of the online dating agency ElitePartner, was awarded the prestigious Controller Award 2014 by the International Association of Controllers (ICV) on Monday (May 19, 2014) at the 39th Congress of Controllers in Munich for its exemplary marketing controlling solution.

EliteMedianet GmbH is a subsidiary of Tomorrow Focus AG with over 80 employees in Hamburg’s Hafencity and operates ElitePartner, one of the leading online dating agencies in the German-speaking world. With the project “Media-Kompass – Regression-supported optimization of the allocation of the advertising budget”, ElitePartner has developed and introduced an innovative and exemplary solution for decision support. This helps to allocate the media budget – which accounts for two thirds of the annual turnover of around EUR 30 million – to various media channels in such a way that the set targets are optimally achieved. Specific sub-targets can also be taken into account by means of “flexible adjusting screws” in the decision-making process. Depending on which target group is to be addressed more strongly in which period, weightings can be changed in the model. Precise forecasts are possible, deviations can be analyzed and incorporated into the allocation model. Overall, there is a stronger focus on the corporate strategy.

This solution is valued for its ease of use as a basis for communication between the managers and employees involved in decision-making within the company. Its use led to a reallocation of the budget for more efficient target achievement – in particular the increase in the “number of new customer registrations” – and to a 9.8% improvement in the cost-turnover ratio in a year-on-year comparison of 2012 and 2013.

The Controller Award 2014, endowed with EUR 5,000, was presented at the opening of the largest controlling conference in the German-speaking world, the 39th Congress of Controllers, by the Chairman of the International Association of Controllers (ICV), Siegfried Gänßlen, CEO of Hansgrohe SE, and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, Otto Beisheim School of Management, to Markus Winter, Commercial Director of EliteMedianet GmbH, Janina Arndt, Robert Brunner, Christina Pieplow, Andra Plückthun, Katrin Sawadsky and Juno Ziss. In his laudatory speech, Chairman of the Jury Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber called this year’s award-winning solution a “solution for a core process of the company”, namely the planning and distribution of the media budget. The controllers have proven themselves as drivers of development and as partners of the management. The easy-to-use tool, which stimulates communication in marketing management, supports decisions based on hard statistical analyses and no longer just on gut feeling. The result is a comprehensible Excel standard tool for internal controlling customers from marketing and media buying.

Weber explained that marketing controlling still has a lot of catching up to do in practice. However, marketing is now increasingly taking care of the “return on marketing” itself. Today, many marketers are no longer inferior to controllers in their ability to calculate. As partners to marketing managers, controllers must therefore provide ever better solutions, a claim that ElitePartner’s 2014 Controller Award winners are exemplary in fulfilling.

“This year’s award winner focuses on a special and highly topical aspect of successful controller work. Lufthansa’s focus on periodic planning as one of the core tasks of controllers is exemplary,” explains Chairman of the Jury Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, Otto Beisheim School of Management, Institute of Management and Controlling (IMC), Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, explains the decision. “The exemplary project has fundamentally changed the planning content: A new planning technique is consistently implemented and an integrated use of the still little and mostly only ‘half-heartedly’ used tool of simulation has been achieved.”

The Controller Award 2013 was awarded according to three aspects: 1. sustainability of the change; 2. benefit for the entire company, not just for controlling; 3. designed and implemented by the controllers themselves. The Lufthansa project is characterized by a development from single-value planning to bandwidth planning. The traditional “best case/expected value/worst case” logic of periodic planning is overcome. In addition, planning and risk management are linked; the risk aspect is systematically integrated into periodic planning. This is accompanied by a change in the internal models of managers and controllers: “risk” is now an original part of all planning. Finally, the Lufthansa project professionally implements the idea of an easy-to-use simulation tool whose complexity has been systematically reduced to make it really manageable.

The high relevance of the solution, which was awarded the Controller Award 2013, is underpinned by the latest results of the WHU Controller Panel. According to these findings, multi-value expectations are not yet systematically taken into account in practice. Simulation-, bandwidth- and driver-based planning is rarely used. There are also still considerable deficits in the underlying methods – such as Monte Carlo simulations. Almost every second controller is not even familiar with this tool. In this respect, it is to be hoped that the Lufthansa example will set a precedent and that more companies will take the path of consistently taking multi-value expectations into account.

Role models for the controlling community

For the 11th time, the ICV has awarded the “Controller Award”, which is endowed with EUR 5,000, at the 38th Congress of Controllers, Europe’s largest controlling conference. The submissions have become more international; for the first time, the Jury received applications from Poland and Moldova. The ICV Jury includes Hillert Onnen (BLG Logistics Group), Luc Schultheiss (Endress+Hauser Flowtec AG), Hubert Tretter (t4t Management Consulting) from the corporate world; Prof. Dr. Andreas Seufert (Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences) and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, (WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management).

The Otto Group Hamburg has received this year’s “Controller Award” from the International Association of Controllers (ICV). The Award was given for the project “Introduction of Activity-Based Costing in the Supplier Traffic Service Center”, which the ICV recognizes as the core of exemplary management of internal services.

As the Chairman of the Jury, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, explained that several factors spoke in favor of this year’s winning solution. A fundamental and comprehensive reorganization process had been initiated, service production had been restructured and professional service management and a new pricing model had been introduced. In addition, consistent change management had led to significant improvements in efficiency, resulting in reduced unit costs for services and, above all, a high level of satisfaction among internal customers.

In the area of accounts payable, the Service Center processes around 450,000 invoices per year for 10 Group companies. With total costs of EUR 3.8 million in supplier transactions, Michael Felix, Head of the Otto Group’s Supplier Transactions Service Center, sees “considerable amounts that could be saved by the subsidiaries, for example.” The main development with the realized project is “that it becomes visible where the starting points for cost savings lie. The transparency created has changed attitudes towards downstream processes such as accounts payable, because it is clear that you can reduce costs through your own actions. We are evolving from traditional overheads, which are calculated for the company as a whole, to costs that can be calculated for individual organizational units, product groups and even individual items.”

“Many companies are currently focusing on shared service centers to reduce overheads,” explains Jürgen Weber. “To do this, processes need to be standardized and consistently managed. With the introduction of activity-based costing, the Otto Group is making exemplary use of a very effective, but still not widely used tool for managing the service center. The Award winner shows how the high complexity of activity-based costing can be mastered and how the attention paid to overhead costs, which is still too low in many places, can be increased for the benefit of the entire company.”

Role models for the controlling community

The ICV awarded the “Controller Award” for the 10th time at the 37th Congress of Controllers, Europe’s largest controlling conference. “The quality of the submissions has increased significantly,” reports Jürgen Weber. “On the one hand, we had a neck-and-neck race between Otto Group and another application; and two or three others would also have been worthy of an award. In this respect, the idea of the Controller Award has obviously finally prevailed.”

The Award is intended to show the controlling community role models and encourage imitation. The Award is based on three aspects: Firstly, the “sustainability of the change”, because a quick introduction of a new tool alone will fizzle out; secondly, the “benefit for the company, not just for controlling” counts, because the success of controlling and the success of the company are closely linked; thirdly, the “conception and implementation led by the controllers themselves” is decisive, because sustainability is jeopardized if the change is strongly driven and operated from outside.

The ICV Jury includes Hillert Onnen (BLG Logistics Group), Luc Schultheiss (Endress+Hauser Flowtec AG), Hubert Tretter (t4t Management Consulting) from the corporate world; Prof. Dr. Andreas Seufert (Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences) and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, (WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management).

Previous winners of the Controller Award were: Sick AG: Redesign of planning (“One-Page-Only”); Aventis Pharma: FACTs – Finance Analyzing & Controlling Tools; T-Online International: Management of growth companies; Kaufhof Warenhaus: Realignment of the branch business; Hansgrohe AG: Sales up!Lufthansa City Line: New corporate management; Wittlinger Therapiezentrum/Dr. Vodder Akademie: Development of process, quality and financial controlling; Fiege: “From reporter to consultant”; Bundesagentur für Arbeit: Management of labor market programs; McDonald`s: Initiative controlling McCafé.

Otto Group

Founded in Germany in 1949, the Otto Group is now a global retail and services group with around 54,200 employees (as of February 2012). The Group is represented by 123 major companies in more than 20 countries in Europe, North America and Asia. Its business activities cover the three segments of Multichannel Retail, Financial Services and Service. In the 2011/12 financial year (February 29), the Otto Group generated revenues of 11.6 billion euros according to preliminary figures. It is the world’s largest online retailer for fashion and lifestyle and the world’s second largest online retailer with the end consumer (BtoC). Catalog business, e-commerce and stationary retail form the three pillars of the Otto Group’s multi-channel retail business. Worldwide Group activities and a large number of strategic partnerships and joint ventures offer Otto excellent conditions for the transfer of know-how and the exploitation of synergy potential. At the same time, a high degree of autonomy on the part of the Group companies guarantees flexibility and customer proximity as well as an optimal target group approach in the respective countries.

The 2011 Controller Award of the International Association of Controllers (ICV) has been presented to McDonald’s Deutschland Inc. for the “Initiative Controlling McCafé” project. The Award ceremony took place on Monday (May 16) in Munich at the 36th Congress of Controllers. This is the 9th time that the ICV has awarded the Controller Award, which is endowed with EUR 5,000, for an exemplary controlling solution. In the award-winning project “Initiative Controlling McCafé”, the McDonald’s Controlling departments had supported and accompanied the entire realization process of McCafé since 2003, i.e. even before the market launch.

The Chairman of the Jury, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees, Otto Beisheim School of Management, Institute of Management and Controlling (IMC), Vallendar, explained the decision as follows: “The core characteristics of this Award-winning project lie on the one hand in the consistency of accompanying and supporting the development of a business area from the initial idea through to successful implementation and further development over a period of years. On the other hand, the development of the controllers themselves, from a pure supplier of figures to a business partner, should be emphasized. Both of these factors combined make the project a worthy winner of this year’s Controller Award.”

At the 35th Congress of Controllers on Monday (June 14) in Munich, the “Controller Award 2010” of the International Association of Controllers (ICV) was awarded to the Federal Employment Agency (BA). The Award was presented for an exemplary controlling solution for public administrations – a “lighthouse project”. A special Award was given to Birgit Feistmantl, Controller at Swarovski Japan ltd.

The Controller Award2010, endowed with EUR 5,000, went to the BA for the “SAMP – Steuerung Arbeitsmarktprogramme” project. SAMP supports budgeting and its adaptation to rapidly changing framework conditions. The BA has introduced quarterly updates of the annual plan in view of its high need for control during the year and can make adjustments to ongoing business on this basis.

The ICV Jury gave a special Award to Birgit Feistmantl, Controller at Swarovski Japan ltd. At the Japanese subsidiary of the Austrian company, she succeeded in combining Japanese accounting with controlling according to the ICV model. The result is significant changes in the area of cost allocation, as well as in personnel management.

Selection process throws up three new top issues
For the 8th time, the ICV has awarded the Controller Award for an exemplary controlling solution. This year, the jurors experienced both the familiar and the new in the selection process. The Chairman of the Jury, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, Chairman of the ICV Board of Trustees and Director of the Institute of Management and Controlling at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, identified three top themes as new features in the applications, “all of which are important for controlling”.

Firstly, “brands as value drivers and value carriers of the company” have emerged as a “new substantive field”. Controllers urgently need to build up expertise in this area. Only a few corresponding assessments (as intangibles) are being made today; the topic is still underdeveloped in the context of standard management. In particular, an application for the 2010 Controller Award for “Brand Performance Management” proved to be trend-setting because it was not just about brand evaluation, but about “real brand management, in which controllers are significantly involved”.

Another, second novelty was revealed in the “international perspective”. According to Jürgen Weber, the “German view of controlling” is just as little known in the Anglo-American region as it is in Asia. This year, however, there was an application that is also trend-setting here. In the Japanese subsidiary of an Austrian company, “an attempt was made to breathe new life into Japanese accounting”, reports Weber. A “very sensitive adaptation of ‘German controlling’ to Japanese characteristics, e.g. through the integration of elements of continuous improvement” was achieved. The result was “significant changes in the area of cost allocation, as well as in personnel management”. The Jury honored the efforts of Birgit Feistmantl, controller at Swarovski Japan ltd, with a special Award.

According to the ICV Jury, the third, trend-setting application for the Controller Award came from a “field in which controlling has been introduced conceptually, but where the solutions in practice are still rather theoretical: public institutions,” describes head juror Weber. There is considerable potential and great urgency here to use increasingly scarce state resources more effectively and efficiently. In this context, the Controller Award went to a public institution that had “made the transition from traditional input management to results and impact-oriented management”. The Federal Employment Agency has undergone a “remarkably consistent restructuring of management with the strong involvement of controllers”. Effectiveness and efficiency have been significantly improved, explains Weber.

The application for the ICV Award was made for one aspect of the change project, which concerned budgeting and its adaptation to rapidly changing conditions. Even more so than in the private sector, budget planning in the public sector is extremely complex and therefore slow and inflexible. Where the scope of tasks is subject to strong fluctuations, there is a great need for control during the year. For this reason, in addition to the periodic approach, a way was found to update the annual planning on a quarterly basis during the year and then make adjustments to the business on this basis. As Jürgen Weber explained, the 2010 Controller Award for the BA is intended to encourage public institutions to put the idea of controlling into practice. The Award was given for a “lighthouse project”.

Bernd Voss: From reporter to consultant

Lufthansa CityLine: “Realignment of corporate management”

Wittlinger Therapy Center/Dr. Vodder Academy:
“Development of process, quality and financial controlling in interaction”

Hansgrohe AG: “Sales Up! – Growth against the trend!”

Kaufhof Warenhaus AG, “Market-oriented store management”

T-Online International AG, “Managing growth companies using the efficiency matrix”

Aventis Pharma Deutschland GmbH, “FACTs – Finance Analyzing & Controlling Tools”

Sick AG, “One Page Only