ENG: ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2024 for Bosch

Munich/Wörthsee, 29.4.2024. The solution, which won an 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 addresses a central pain point for many companies and develops a concrete solution that significantly relieves the burden on controllers and enables the freed-up capacities to be used for more in-depth analyzes and management-relevant questions,” explains Jury Chairman Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer the decision for the winning project on the highly relevant topic of sustainability.

With its controlling solution “myGreenBusiness”, the technology and service company improves the management and reporting of important sustainability management metrics. At the same time, the requirements for external reporting obligations of the EU taxonomy can be implemented more easily and expanded into group-wide, digital taxonomy reporting. The aim is, on the one hand, to contribute to the company's growth goals through sustainability. On the other hand, it should support Bosch in its long-term focus on the balance between economic, ecological and social actions.

Integrated consideration enables holistic management. The central component 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 provides relief thanks to the high degree of digitalization: previously manual routine activities, such as maintaining classic Excel tables, are no longer necessary. Controllers can make the sustainable orientation of their organizational unit's product portfolio transparent using the financial indicators of the taxonomy - an optimal basis for their role as a business partner to management. “With just a few clicks, we can gain insight into our taxonomy metrics across 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 introduction for end users began in February 2024. In the final expansion stage, around 950 users across the company in central functions, business areas and legal entities will work with “myGreenBusiness”. “During development, we were able to draw on the extensive experience we have already gained with digitization in the financial sector,” says Patrick Hehl, and: “Important for the quick success was integration of an existing controlling solution with which developers and... users were already familiar with”.

Bosch's myGreenBusiness combines current requirements

The taxonomy KPIs sales as well as investment and operating expenses reflect Bosch's sustainability performance according to the EU taxonomy in myGreenBusiness. In the event of target deviations, early countermeasures are possible. “With the introduction of myGreenBusiness, we can more easily implement the legal requirements of the EU taxonomy. The group-wide transparency about our sustainable products also becomes a competitive advantage through more efficient processes and the holistic management of the product portfolio,” explains Dr. Marco Möhrer, co-project manager in the Corporate Office Sustainability Business Management at Bosch.

Bring project experience into the controlling community

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

Austrian Post and Vetter Pharma production are also convincing

The Bosch project prevailed against submissions from the companies 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: “As a Jury, we are very convinced that the nominated solutions once again represent excellence in controlling in an exemplary manner, covering the entire spectrum from innovative solutions with exemplary character - in addition to Robert Bosch, the Österreichische Post with an agile controlling framework - and successful implementation of integrated corporate management in medium-sized companies such as Vetter Pharma.”

Österreichische Post: Agile principles in financial work further rolled out

The controlling team at Österreichische Post AG has worked on an agile framework for the entire group controlling in order to be able to react better and faster to changing conditions. For this purpose, a new prioritization process for the following year's top topics, OKRs as a tool for more complex tasks and a so-called "cycle of clarity" that is intended to ensure clearer objectives were developed. As a result, Utz Schäffer praises, “the agile principles are now being rolled out step by step to other aspects of work in the finance sector,” and: “As a result, we not only see shorter process lead times and progress in process and/or process management and project quality in Österreichische Post’s controlling.The agile transformation has also led to more personal responsibility, new development paths for controllers and a stronger focus on strategic issues.”

Vetter Pharma-Fertigung: Consistent, comprehensive approach is impressive

Vetter Pharma-Fertigung has set out to operationalize the Vetter Finance Strategy 2025 using the example of integrated corporate management, with the aim of further developing it towards a holistic strategic and operational control concept based on fully integrated and automated data. The concept includes rolling 24-month sales planning, which is 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 a medium-sized context," because: "The result at Vetter Pharma is a significantly lower effort in corporate management, higher data quality, transparency and acceptance as well as better interaction with management," summarizes Utz Schäffer.

The ICV Controlling Excellence Award: prestigious award since 2003

Since 2003, with the Controlling Excellence Award the ICV has been honoring convincing controlling projects that provide significant support for the submitting company because they are just as innovative as they are practical. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer (WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management), the Jury members weigh in on Prof. Dr. Andreas Seufert (Ludwigshafen University of Economics and Society, Institute for Business Intelligence at the Steinbeis University Berlin), Prof. Dr. Ute Vanini (e.g. FH Kiel), Roland Iff (e.g. former CFO Geberit); Dipl. Wirt. Ing. Jens Bieniek (e.g. former CFO BLG Logistics) and Dr. rer. pol. Lars Grünert (CFO TRUMPF Werkzeugmaschinen) will determine exactly who will ultimately be able to claim not only the title and prize money but also the international reputation of the ICV Controlling Excellence Award.

• The main sponsors of the prize worth 3,000 euros are Atvisio and smartPM.solutions.
• Applications are possible until the end of January for the award for the current year. The details of the tender can be found on the ICV website.

The ICV has been setting standards for controlling excellence for almost 50 years

The International Association of Controllers (ICV), with its office in Wörthsee, Germany, has set standards for controlling and controllers alike for almost 50 years and is today the competence address for controlling excellence in Europe. The approximately 6,000 members and around 260 corporate members benefit from an extensive network, central contacts, top-class specialist events, awards for excellent work and more than 60 work groups. These are regionally oriented and are dedicated to specific industries or expert topics. The Association brings together theory and practice, trends and tried and tested, specialist knowledge and expertise and thus offers a complete offering for controllers, CFOs and everyone who focuses on controlling and corporate management.

At a glance: All winners of the ICV Controlling Excellence Awards since 2003

• 2024 Robert Bosch GmbH - myGreenBusiness – Digitalization of EU taxonomy reporting
• 2023 Merck KGaA - Enabling High-Impact Culture in Financial Steering
• 2022 Deutsche Post DHL Group - Integration of sustainability goals into controlling of Deutsche Post DHL Group
• 2021 Robert Bosch GmbH - Controller of the Future – People make the Difference
• 2020 BASF SE, PACE – Predictive Analytics Estimate
• 2019 Unitymedia GmbH, Strom – Value Stearing Roadmap. Establishment of value-oriented management
• 2018 Robert Bosch GmbH - Big Data – Based approach to optimizing NWC at Bosch Diesel Systems
• 2017 EDEKA Handelsgesellschaft Südwest mbH - pioneering solution for comprehensive changes to the management system and controlling
• 2016 Covestro Deutschland AG - comprehensive redesign of the entire controlling as a result of Covestro's carve out from the Bayer Group
• 2015 RWE AG - taking biases into account in decision-making processes
• 2014 EliteMedianet GmbH - Controlling & Analysis Team, Project MEDIA-KOMPASS Regression-supported optimization of the allocation of the advertising budget
• 2013 Deutsche Lufthansa AG - project team bandwidth planning, bandwidth simulation in the air transport passenger business
• 2012 Otto GmbH & Co KG - Service Center Supplier Traffic, introduction of process cost accounting in the Service Center Supplier Traffic of the Otto Group
• 2011 McDonald's Germany Inc. - project team controlling, initiative controlling McCafé
• 2010 Federal Employment Agency - Controlling Department, development of the “SAMP” tool
• 2009 FIEGE Stiftung GmbH & Co. KG - Bernd Voss, representative of the logistics controlling team
• 2008 Lufthansa CityLine GmbH - realignment of corporate management
• 2008 Wittlinger Therapy Center / Dr. Vodder Academy - development of process, quality and financial controlling in interaction
• 2007 Hansgrohe AG - Business Development, Sales Up! – Growth against the trend!
• 2006 Kaufhof Warenhaus AG - management area controlling & projects, market-oriented branch management
• 2005 T-Online International AG - controlling growth companies via the efficiency matrix
• 2004 Aventis Pharma Deutschland GmbH - FACTs Team, Finance Analyzing & Controlling Tools – FACTs
• 2003 SICK AG Waldkirch - controller team, planning and reporting concept One Page Only - OPO

Your contact person for inquiries regarding the ICV Controlling Excellence Award Winner 2024:

Sven Kahn
Corporate Communications - External Communications (C/CGC-EC1)
Robert Bosch GmbH | Postfach 10 60 50 | 70049 Stuttgart | GERMANY | www.bosch.com
Tel. +49 711 811-6415 | Mobil +49 160 8808713 | Telefax +49 711 811-5183891 | Sven.Kahn{bei}de.bosch.com

Your contact person at the ICV: Brigitte Dienstl-Arnegger
web{bei}icv-controlling.com