"Platform ecosystems" replaces silo thinking in all areas

1.     What is currently the most serious change for controlling - and what does it mean for the controller?

Everyone is talking about digitization... everybody wants it ... But the two biggest challenges are:

• 1. Where do I get money and resources for the "digitization in controlling" and
• 2. How can I quickly build up the know-how in controlling to work with large amounts of data to create meaningful evaluations / analyzes / suggestions for the management and to be able to keep pace with new departments (eg omni-channel-team...).

Ad. 1: All projects go forward – i.e. to the customer; This makes it difficult to justify the need for controlling projects. Here a good marketing of the controlling department is needed to show the added value. Ad. 2: As soon as it starts and the tools are available, the controllers must be fit to deal with the data volumes.

2.  Stationary retailing is having a hard time - can online commerce absorb the drop in sales in your industry or for the Deichmann Group?

It is not a catching-up of inpatient turnover, but rather a mixture and merger as well as mutual complementing of sales. The sale in the branches has always mastered many challenges and responded well to a variety of changes well. This will continue to be a core competence of brick-and-mortar retailing. What's new is the rethinking that the company is changing from multichannel to omni-channel. The integration of all possible channels for the customer must work smoothly and invisibly for the customer. The customer must come to their desired goods simply and uncomplicatedly. Availability, simplicity and speed play a major role here. That's our job - the merging of the channels.     

3.  "Platform ecosystems" is a central concept of your presentation. Can you briefly outline what lies behind and how the controlling is affected?

This is the idea or rather the philosophy that, as already described in point 2, the channels merge and we as a company are seen by the customer as a "platform". The added value results from many additional and new services, fast flow of goods, a high level of availability, the possibility of "grasping the goods on site" and simple, smooth processes that are not visible to the customer. Controlling faces the task of transparent presentation of this concept with instruments. The silo thinking (sales stationary, sale through the e-shop, marketing, purchasing...) and silo reporting is not working anymore.

As a new factor, data from the "individual customer" comes into play. Marketing with the watering can and clustering of customers into larger groups no longer works. The individual is the center of attention - everything else is SPAM. If you bring this point into the corporate structure, you have to think differently and processes have to be questioned. Controlling has to be able to understand this "micro-orientation" and actively participate in the design. In this respect, there is the demand to develop a comprehensive reporting with a variety of starting points, which can represent the effectiveness of measures in the new ecosystem.