The adaptive management model
On 22 May, Financial Times published a great article titled: Why the annual company budget no longer adds up
The article is very well written and it includes many great examples of why organizations should stop the madness of the annual corporate budget.
The article was based on an interview with Anders Olesen, and it makes numerous references to people and companies in and around our network.
To read the article click here: BB in FT.com
On 21 April, Statoil hosted the biannual Norwegian BBRT event, which once again was a great success. As the host, Bjarte Bogsnes facilitated the meeting, and he shared interesting insights about how Balanced Scorecards can work in a Beyond Budgeting setting such as Statoil’s. He also reviewed the recently updated 12 Beyond Budgeting principles.
Once again, we were fortunate to have Reitan Group’s CFO Kristin Genton attend this forum, and again she delivered a great presentation. This time the focus was on their very effective financial culture.
Reitan is one of the largest companies in Norway, with a turnover of close to EUR 10 billion and some 36,600 employees. The group operates in several business areas (brand names in brackets): Food Retail (REMA 1000), Kiosk/Convenience (Narvesen, Pressbyrån, R-Kioski, 7-Eleven), Energy & Fuel (Uno-X) and Real Estate (Reitan Eiendom).
Reitan’s goal is to be the most value-driven company. The company has a strong culture with the customer as the ultimate boss, and a working environment where authority is delegated to employees who are their own decision makers. Accordingly, we were not surprised when it was recently announced that Great Place to Work® awarded them the best large employer (>500 employees) in Norway in 2016 – Congratulations!
One striking resemblance between Beyond Budgeting and the Reitan Group is our common view on the importance of having a holistic and coherent management model. In Beyond Budgeting, we talk about coherence between Leadership Principles and Management Processes. Reitan uses slightly different words for the same; namely Culture and Structure – but the essence is the same.
The role of Reitan Group’s HQ is to give direction and support regarding values, and to provide standards for financial management. Other than this, there are no HQ functions or activities on group level. The HQ is thus very lean with only about 15 employees.
Here are the key elements of Reitan’s financial culture, which were presented and debated at the BBRT meeting:
It goes without saying that Reitan Group does not bother with annual budgets. Here is Odd Reitan on budgets: “Many companies have big departments only doing budgeting, sending numbers up and down the organization, before they are presented to the board to give them something to talk about. A waste of time and energy! A forecast, however, is something very different. It gives us a picture of how things might develop. If we don’t like what we see, it forces us to do something!”
As announced recently, Vanguard Consulting is now our formal partner in the UK and Ireland. Vanguard is a management consultancy specialised in helping service organisations change from a conventional ‘command-and-control’ design to a systems design. We are convinced that by combining our expertise and knowledge we can become even better at helping organisations develop and implement new management processes and move beyond the traditional ‘command & control’ mind-set.
To read Vanguard founder John Seddon’s positioning paper which outlines the programme of work that Vanguard and we have agreed, see here.
Steve Morlidge has just finalized the second working paper on the subject of variance analysis. This topic is of particular interest to us since it is an integral part of the traditional management system we want to replace. The first paper set out the reasons why conventional approaches to performance measurement don’t work. This second paper is titled: From static to dynamic measures; understanding the patterns of behaviour. To read the paper click here.
In the Beyond Budgeting community we have a particular interest in finding better ways to measure and analyse performance. Variance analysis (‘how are we doing against plan?’) is a cornerstone of traditional management and budgeting. It is one of the reasons why budgeting is so hard to eradicate and why we need to find alternatives. If the only tool we have to analyse performance is a variance, then we have to have budgets even if we do not believe in budgeting itself. Therefore, finding better ways to measure, analyse and communicate about performance will remove a serious obstacle to the adoption of Beyond Budgeting. Accordingly, we are very grateful for Steve’s contribution to this end.
The paper is authored by Steve Morlidge who has spent most of his professional career in designing and running performance management systems in Unilever. Steve co-authored ’Future Ready: Mastering business forecasting’ (John Wiley, 2010) and has written many papers on business forecasting. Steve is the former Chairman of the BBRT.
More than 50 delegates attended this month’s Beyond Budgeting conference in Copenhagen.
The conference focused on exemplifying how pioneering organisations have achieved significant and sustainable competitive advantages by applying the Beyond Budgeting principles. With less bureaucracy and with more freedom to act, organisations are capable of delivering outstanding results.
We were very fortunate to have these great speakers with us:
We would like to thank all the speakers for participating.
Jos de Blok, Buurtzorg & Anders Olesen, Beyond Budgeting Institute
Around the world, productivity growth has stalled out. While some hope that a “second machine age” will reverse the slump, Professor Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini from the MLab think that wringing bureaucracy out of the economy offers a more promising and less speculative route to boosting productivity. By their calculations, busting bureaucracy would add $3 trillion to economic growth in the US alone. Dismantling bureaucracy won’t be easy, but it has to happen – bureaucracy must die.
To illustrate the cost of bureaucracy, please see the chart below which is from an investor presentation made by Handelsbanken in 2014. It’s a great summary of the “bureaucracy tax”, that we find in most organisations:
Gary and Michele have just written a working paper summarizing their findings and providing a blueprint for abolishing the bureaucracy tax in organizations. They value your feedback on this paper; so thanks in advance for your contribution!
About the Management Lab (MLab):
Together with Polly LaBarre, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini are the founders of the MLab that focuses on helping organizations build tomorrow’s capabilities today – to become as resilient, innovative, and inspiring as they need to meet 21st century challenges. They have launched the world’s largest open innovation platform (the Management Innovation eXchange) involving 10s of 1000s of management innovators in “crowd solving” tough management challenges; developed a methodology and a platform for changing how large organizations change; and cultivated a vibrant network of vanguard leaders and organizations – all focused on reinventing management for the 21st century.
We hope the above sounds familiar to you… Yes – we are indeed fighting the same fight!
We are assisting Professor Kenneth A. Merchant from University of Southern California by collecting data for an important research project.
We need your help in answering the question above. Many organizations have used or experimented with innovations such as Beyond Budgeting and learned how to better adapt to ever-changing environments. A few weeks ago, this research project was launched to find out what works and what does not for different types of organizations.
If you are familiar with Beyond Budgeting or other innovations, please share your experience. Your participation in this survey is critical to help advance both theory and practice by independent academic research.
Even if you have never heard of Beyond Budgeting and/or are dissatisfied with your current budget planning processes or performance evaluation practices, your participation will make a difference and help us learn about best practices.
Please access the online survey at the following link: http://wpcareyschool.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6r2CUkL1w6I9jN3
The time required is approximately 10-15 minutes. Confidentiality is guaranteed, and participation is anonymous.
To thank you for your participation, a summary of the findings will be provided. In addition, you will also have access to two reports from prior research as immediate downloads free of charge:
Thank you in advance for your participation in this important study.
More than 60 BBRT Members attended this month’s European BBRT Members’ Meeting, which was held at Handelsbanken’s brand new offices in central London.
We were very fortunate to have these great speakers with us:
The BBRT Core Team used this occasion to review the updated Beyond Budgeting Principles and Franz Röösli facilitated a workshop on this topic.
The BBRT meeting was (as usual) preceded by an Implementers’ meeting the day before. We had a record attendance of almost 40 people. Facilitated by Steve Morlidge, we discussed the importance of better measures of performance – most companies can do this so much better!
BBRT Members will shortly be able to see video from the BBRT Meeting via the Knowledge Base.
We would like to thank all the speakers and Handelsbanken/Heartwood for hosting this event.
The next BBRT Meeting will take place on Thursday 27 October 2016 in London.
We are pleased to announce the second annual Beyond Budgeting conference in Iceland 2016.
The conference will be held at The Tower 4th of May and we will also have two workshops connected to the conference on 3rd of May.
Use this opportunity to meat John Seddon, Bjarte Bogsnes, Nevine White and Tom Georg and learn more about Beyond Budgeting and hear stories from companies on that journey. For more information click here.
Feel free to direct any questions our way (beyond@manino.is) and we will help you in any way we can.
Best regards
Peter Arason and Axel Ulfarsson
Beyond Budgeting Partner – Iceland
The Core Team’s purpose in publishing this paper is to explain the background for the current update of the 12 Beyond Budgeting principles and provide an overview of how the principles have developed over time. The principles are there to inspire and guide organisations as they strive to implement Beyond Budgeting; they do not constitute a management recipe.
It has been five years since the 12 Principles have been updated. The previous version is expressed in ‘The Leader’s Dilemma’, which continues to do an excellent job of providing greater detail on showing how organisations have put these principles into action. In working with both our own organisations, with Beyond Budgeting members, and with other companies trying to understand and apply these principles, we believe we have found
better ways to articulate them.
When we find a significant number of these changes, we follow the example set by the BBRT founders. In this regard, they often updated the principles to better express their understanding.
This white paper is the first time we bring many of the previous versions of the principles together and provide commentary on what changed and why. Our hope, as a Core Team, is that this transparency helps you and your organisation to more fully understand the principles and apply them more effectively.
Download the paper here
We have just published a new paper which is the first in a series of four on the subject of variance analysis. This topic is of particular interest to us since it is an integral part of the traditional management system we want to replace.
This first paper sets out the reasons why conventional approaches to performance measurement don’t work, so building the case for alternative approaches that will be described in subsequent papers.
In the Beyond Budgeting community we have a particular interest in finding better ways to measure and analyse performance. Variance analysis (‘how are we doing against plan?’) is a cornerstone of traditional management and budgeting. It is one of the reasons why budgeting is so hard to eradicate and why we need to find alternatives. If the only tool we have to analyse performance is a variance, then we have to have budgets even if we do not believe in budgeting itself. Therefore, finding a better way to measure and analyse performance removes one of the biggest obstacles to the adoption of Beyond Budgeting.
The paper is authored by Steve Morlidge who has spent most of his professional career in designing and running performance management systems in Unilever. Steve co-authored ’Future Ready: Mastering business forecasting’ (John Wiley, 2010) and has written many papers on business forecasting. Steve is the former Chairman of the BBRT.
To read the paper click here
We have just finalized a new case report and added it to the Knowledge Base where BBRT members can access it.
The report is about Buurtzorg; the amazing Dutch neighbourhood nursing organization that has achieved remarkable results through its unique management model.
If you would like to meet their founder, then join us in Copenhagen at our next open conference. At this occasion we will present great examples of the performance that can be achieved by applying the Beyond Budgeting principles. The other speakers are from Handelsbanken, Reitan and Statoil.
We are getting ready for this major event in London. We are proud to present a program that includes:
We still have a few available guest tickets, so contact us if you would like to attend this event.
We are getting ready for our next open conference: “Beyond Budgeting: Freed from command & control” which is held in Copenhagen on 13 April.
At this event you will learn how pioneering organisations have achieved significant and sustainable competitive advantages by applying the Beyond Budgeting principles. Meet founders, executives and change agents that have developed and sustained new, innovative and much better ways of managing organizations. With less bureaucracy and with more freedom to act, these organizations have delivered outstanding results. Through practical cases, we will demonstrate how the Beyond Budgeting principles can be applied in real life with profound impact.
The following organisations will be presenting their management models and results: Buurtzorg, Handelsbanken, Reitan and Statoil. For those of you not yet familiar with Buurtzorg, here is a great appetizer in the form of a video with their founder Jos de Blok – Watch it here.
To sign up for the conference, please click here.
You can also sign up for the Beyond Budgeting Masterclass on 14 april.
We are very excited to announce that Vanguard Consulting is now our formal partner in the UK and Ireland.
Vanguard is a management consultancy specialised in helping service organisations change from a conventional ‘command-and-control’ design to a systems design. We are convinced that by combining our expertise and knowledge we can become even better at helping organisations develop and implement new management processes and move beyond the traditional ‘command & control’ mind-set.
We look very much forward to our cooperation with Vanguard, who will be represented and actively involved in our next Members’ Meeting in London on 16-17 March.
Organisational culture is important for organisational performance. Accordingly, we are happy to announce that Annicken Day, Founder & Culture Strategist at Corporate Spring will be speaking at our next European BBRT members’ meeting in London in March.
Annicken has played an instrumental part in the growth and success of a number of companies: as Chief Cultural Officer in Tandberg, Culture Evangelist in Cisco and now as Culture Strategist at Corporate Spring.
Please note that Corporate Spring is organising a Culture Workshop in London on 28-29 January. The title is: Making Culture Your Strategy for Growth. In addition to Annicken, also Vlatka Hlupic is among the speakers at this event. Vlatka spoke at a recent BBRT Meeting and is the author of the book: “The Management Shift”.
Morten Holm Jensen, Vice President of Corporate Finance in Arla, was recently interviewed by the Confederation of Danish Industry.
In the Interview Morten Holm Jensen explains that managing performance in the very volatile dairy market requires an organization that can match external volatility with internal vitality.
Volatility and constant change in both the external and internal environments have pushed Arla to convert to Beyond Budgeting.
You can read the article here.
Arla is a Member of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table (BBRT).
On 9 December, around 40 delegates participated in a local Beyond Budgeting workshop in Göteborg organized by our Swedish partner Ekan Management.
The workshop included presentations from Handelsbanken and Akademiska Hus, who both elaborated on their Beyond Budgeting experience. Ekan Management rounded off the workshop highlighting the need for developing dynamic financial processes.
We would like to thank Handelsbanken for hosting the event.
Earlier this week, BBRT chairman Bjarte Bogsnes, wrote a great article which was published in Norway’s main business newspaper. The occasion was the annual celebration of the country’s fastest-growing companies; the so-called gazelle companies.
In the article, Bjarte highlights the desire of these companies to continue their growth and development. As small companies grow they tend to be inspired by how larger organisations are managed; they copy their systems and processes which includes an impressive and spectacular list: strategy development, business planning, budgeting, risk management, KPI systems, performance management processes, rewards systems, etc.
All of these systems and processes are all there for the right reasons: to improve the companies’ performance. However, experience shows that they very often have the opposite effect: they turn the once-agile companies into slow, rigid and bureaucratic organisations… and sometimes even into sad places to work.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be like this. It is stated nowhere that companies must adopt all the bad habits of larger ones; and this is where Beyond Budgeting provides an alternative that enables fast-growing companies to maintain their agility and employee engagement leading that leads them to further performance improvement.
The above is a quote from Deutsche Bank’s new co-chief executive John Cryan which led to several articles in business papers this week; most notably in Financial Times. Hopefully, this will contribute to an increased understanding and belief that individual bonuses lead to poorer organizational performance.
The editor’s letter in yesterday’s FT – see below – includes a great example: It notes that the period during which banking wages were at the very highest, not least due to lucrative individual bonuses, neatly corresponds to the years when shareholder returns were at the worst.
Did you ever wonder why companies on average make significant changes to their individual bonus schemes every second year? It is not a ‘continuous improvement’ effort… it is because they fundamentally do not work as intended.
We wonder how long it will take for shareholders to wake up and stop this value-destructing practice of individual bonuses.
Reference is also made to our most recent newsletter about: The Bonus Paradox – or: Why don’t we fire HR?
Financial Times, 26 November 2015
On 23 October, Knut Fahlén at Ekan Management (our local Beyond Budgeting Partner in Sweden) attended a packed breakfast meeting on the theme Beyond Budgeting. The organizer of the event was the West Swedish Chamber of Commerce.
Knut began by describing the budget’s origin including the conditions in the business environment, market and organizations. He then went over in today’s highly uncertain and changing reality to highlight why the traditional budgetary control has played out its role – “What many companies are looking for today is a more dynamic management model, which provides the opportunity to better adapt to the outside World.” The audience also agreed on the fact that the budget is a time consuming process. One of the delegates expressed his viewpoint: “We spend 40 percent of our time on the budget, and it is outdated all the time.” Someone else expressed the difficulty of changing such a strong institution budget process in their organization.
Several questions dealt with how to proceed in order to develop its business in the director of the Beyond Budgeting Framework. In that connection, Knut emphasized that Beyond Budgeting is not a recipe that each organization must follow. However, there are many tools and experiences to help you out in the process.
The Beyond Budgeting Institute has produced a short video that explains what Beyond Budgeting is all about. Among other things, Members of the BBRT Core Team reveal why there is a need for transformation in order to bring management to the next level and align it with the present and the future.
On October 28th our BBRT partners in Iceland, Beyond ehf., hosted the first annual Manino Finance conference in Reykjavík. The conference’s theme was Finance’s role in implementing Beyond Budgeting and Lean with focus on rolling forecasts and lean accounting.
Steve Player, BBRT’s North America program director introduced a holistic view on the Beyond Budgeting model and discussed how business forecasting can be used to improve decision making.
Bjarte Bogsnes, Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table, presented the BB model at Statoil and how KPI’s are best used in a BB setting.
Jean Cunningham, a widely recognized pioneer of Lean Business Management, introduced Lean accounting and compared standard costing to the value stream approach in financial reporting.
Around 80 people participated and the organizers received much positive feedback on the subjects and presenters at the conference.
On 3 November, we held an open Beyond Budgeting conference in London.
The event featured interesting, thought-provoking and insightful presentations from thought-leaders and practitioners.
The event demonstrated that the Beyond Budgeting philosophy represents a holistic and coherent management model. The model is completely in line with Handelsbanken’s way of working which has been successfully applied for more than 40 years. At the same time, it is in line with advanced Systems Thinking, and even ready for what lies ahead; the latter referred to by LBS professor Julian Birkinshaw as: Adhocracy.
Thanks to all the great speakers, and to Happy for hosting the event.
Some 60 BBRT Members enjoyed interesting and thought-provoking days of listening and debating at the last BBRT Members’ Meeting, which this time took place at Schneider Electric’s Headquarter in Paris.
We were very fortunate to receive input from the following speakers:
In the afternoon, we had a parallel French session for about 25 people interested in the Beyond Budgeting Principles – a great afternoon with knowledge sharing and interesting presentations from Isaac Getz, Jean-Michel Segui from Schneider Electric and Mehdi Berrada from Groupe Poult.
We would like to give thanks to all the speakers and Schneider Electric for hosting the event.
The next Members’ Meeting will take place on 17 March 2016 in London.
Are you interested in learning how to break free from the annual performance trap and create the right conditions for great performance to take place?
Join us in London in November at the Open Beyond Budgeting Conference and Beyond Budgeting Masterclass. An exceptional opportunity to learn from inspiring thought leaders and practitioners.
Learn how to abandon traditional ‘command-and-control’ and implement a management model that is more empowered and agile. At the conference, you can meet:
In order to sign up, please click here.
Take part in one day intensive training in methods and tools for practical implementation of the Beyond Budgeting Principles based on strong case stories.
Anders Olesen, Director of the Beyond Budgeting Institute, will explain and illustrate how to develop and implement management models that lead to lean, adaptive and ethical enterprises that can sustain superior competitive performance.
In order to sign up, please click here.
We are excited to announce that we have entered into agreement with Kurt Salmon – a global management consulting firm – to represent us in France. Kurt Salmon has several service lines including: CFO Advisory, Human Resources Management, Strategy etc. They have considerable advisory experience within Performance Management and Beyond Budgeting related issues. In France, they have offices in Paris, Lyon and Nantes.
We look very much forward to our cooperation with Kurt Salmon, who will be well represented at our events in Paris next week.
It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that BBRT co-founder, Peter Bunce, passed away on Friday, 21 August at the age of 68. Our thoughts are with his wife and family at this time.
As some of you will already know, Peter was diagnosed with cancer in late 2013 and, demonstrating great fortitude and a positive spirit, he had subsequently undergone numerous treatments. Sadly, none of these had the desired effect.
Peter had been looking so much forward to spend his well-deserved retirement together with his wife, Sarah, their children and grandchildren. Very sadly, he did not live to experience this.
As one of three founders, Peter played a key role in establishing the BBRT in 1998, and in its development since then. All through this time, Peter was incredibly committed to the BBRT, and he remained a member of the BBRT Core Team until his death. Together with co-founders Jeremy Hope and Robin Fraser, he has left a legacy through his role in articulating more humane and effective ways to manage organizations.
Peter was an inspirational leader of our network, a dear friend, colleague and mentor to many. He will be greatly missed.
Two years ago, Peter decided to gradually step out of his day-to-day responsibilities in the network. This transition has been very successful, not least due to his positive spirit and strong wish to see the BBRT continue its positive development. Peter leaves us at a time where we have our largest membership base, many implementations underway, and exciting plans for the future; plans that he would have liked to see materialize.
Peter put so much of himself into the BBRT. We all owe him a big debt of gratitude.
If you wish to send condolences to his family, you are welcome to direct them to me and I will make sure to pass them on. Peter’s Thanks Giving service is held at St Thomas Church in Lymington on Thursday, 3 September at 2.00 pm.
Instead of flowers, people are welcome to donate a token amount to Oakhaven Hospice where Peter spent his last weeks. For more information, please click here.
Anders Olesen
On behalf of the BBRT Core Team
The budget remains the central framework by which organisations set targets and allocate resources despite the fact that most leaders know that the budgeting process causes significant problems.
In August’s edition of ‘Strategically Speaking’, issued by the international consultancy Palladium, Anders Olesen and Bjarte Bogsnes share their viewpoints when asked the question: “Is the budgeting process still fit for purpose?”
You can read the article here.
Rikard Olsson from Ekan Management (our Beyond Budgeting Partner in Sweden) inspired CFO’s from across Europe on the theme “Beyond Budgeting – is it for real now?”. Speakers from Maersk Line, Weight Watchers, Nors, 20th Century Fox and others all confirmed that the role of the Finance function, methods and tools used for accounting control is changing fundamentally. In times of uncertainty and increased market complexity it becomes apparent that the traditional budgetary control is obsolete and that Beyond Budgeting has become an established way to meet the changes. Ekan Management is proud to be awarded “best presentation” at the conference and look forward to more interest from companies all over Europe.
Franz Röösli, member of the Beyond Budgeting Institute’s Core Team, has written the article ‘Management Plasticity’ in cooperation with Doug Kirkpatrick (Morning Star) and Mike Sonntag (MD), who are both part of our Beyond Budgeting Network.
‘Management Plasticity’ is a new interesting term defined by the authors. The term refers to the article’s conclusion that to unfold human potential and creativity, organizations must transform the traditional management mode of ‘predict and control’ into a new mode of ‘sense and respond’.
You can read the article here.
On 27 May, the first ever Beyond Budgeting conference was held in Reykjavik, Iceland. About 130 leaders from Iceland’s leading businesses attended the conference; this is a great sign of a very promising interest in Beyond Budgeting. Several Icelandic companies have already started their Beyond Budgeting journey, and based on the interest we see now, there is no doubt that many more will follow. The conference was very well organized by our recently appointed local partner: Beyond ehf. represented by Petur Arason and Axel Guðni Úlfarsson (pictured below).
Last year, we started to organize local workshops for our BBRT members. These events are coordinated by our local partners and have proven extremely popular.
In the beginning of May workshops were held in Denmark and in Norway. At both events, BBRT members shared valuable implementation experiences. We also discussed how to manage costs without traditional budgets and in Norway, the program included a great example of a large insurer that has successfully abandoned its bonus programs.
Last week, the local BBRT workshop took place in Sweden at Volvo Cars in Gothenburg. This too was a great day packed with great cases from Volvo Cars, Nors and Spotify.
You can also be a part of our local workshops. Become a member of the BBRT and learn how to break free from the annual performance trap.
In the beginning of April, BBRT chairman Bjarte Bogsnes and director Anders Olesen attended a number of meetings and workshops in Paris. All these events were about introducing the Beyond Budgeting principles and management model to French companies.
In total, Anders and Bjarte met with some 250-300 people, most of who represented some of the largest industrial and financial companies in France.
One of the events was a joint session with Schneider Electric that successfully implemented Beyond Budgeting more than 10 years ago.
We are very excited about this interest. We will follow this closely and do our best to support the initiatives taken in France. Moreover, as mentioned at the latest BBRT Members’ meeting in London last month: it is very likely that the next European BBRT meeting is held in France.
Last week the first Members’ Meeting in 2015 took place in London. The meeting was preceded by the Implementers’ Meeting facilitated by Steve Morlidge, former BBRT Chairman with more than 30 years of practical experience in designing and running performance management systems at Unilever. The meeting explored the subject “Targets and target setting” and provided advice to active implementers.
The BBRT Members included three main themes. Frederic Laloux revealed the key findings of his three years groundbreaking research presented in the book “Reinventing Organizations”. During his presentation, Frederic elaborated on some very interesting patterns pointing towards a new emerging organizational model leading to more purposeful and better performing organizations.
At the meeting some BBRT Members also shared their varied Beyond Budgeting experiences.
During the last three years Uno-X has created a number of significant changes to their management model and organization resulting in improved profitability, cost efficiency, customer satisfaction and overall competitiveness. Henrik Esberg, the CFO of Uno-X Automat explained in his presentation how they have benefited from applying the Reitan culture and the Beyond Budgeting principles – a great example of the unleashing of performance potential that can follow when an organization is given autonomy.
Furthermore, DNV GL shared their experiences with the implementation of Beyond Budgeting processes into a large global organization that has been around for a long time.
All presentations from the meeting will soon be available on the BBRT Members’ Community.
We are looking forward to welcoming you in October at the next BBRT Members’ Meeting.
Today Denmark’s largest business paper, Børsen, brought a great article about BBRT Member Arla. The article describes how Arla manages without budgets in order to move beyond command and control with the purpose of releasing their employees from the burdens of stifling bureaucracy and suffocating control systems, trusting them with information and giving them time to think, reflect, share, learn and improve.
You can read the article here. Please note that the article is in Danish.
The next local BBRT Members’ workshop in Denmark is hosted by Arla, who at this occasion will elaborate on their model for rolling forecasting.
In order to reach out to as many organisations as possible, we seek to build a global network of Beyond Budgeting Partners. The role of the partner is to promote the Beyond Budgeting Principles locally and organise local Beyond Budgeting events. In addition, the partner shall assist locally based organisations on their Beyond Budgeting journeys.
It is a great pleasure to inform you that we have entered into an agreement with Beyond ehf. to represent us in Iceland. Beyond ehf. is a newly established company owned by two of our old friends from the Beyond Budgeting network: Axel Guðni Úlfarsson (Össur) and Petúr Arason (Marel).
Their first major activity is an open conference taking place on 27 May in Reykjavik. Bjarte Bogsnes and Anders Olesen from the Beyond Budgeting Institute will attend the conference, which will also include an interesting presentation about the Maersk Group’s Beyond Budgeting journey.
This month, the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) is publishing a Special Report on Budgeting. The report includes articles on different aspects of budgeting from various experts.
The Beyond Budgeting Institute is very happy to have contributed to the report with an article representing the Beyond Budgeting approach including case studies.
This article was first published in the special report “Budgeting”. The faculty helps accountants in business to perform at their best. For more information on the benefits of membership see icaew.com/fmjoin
We are very excited about the next European BBRT Members’ Meeting in London.
The meeting on 12 March will include very interesting insights into emerging organizational models that lead to more purposeful and better performing organizations.
In addition, BBRT Members will share their varied Beyond Budgeting experiences, including:
The Members’ meeting is preceded by the Implementers’ Meeting on 11 March. The theme of this meeting is “Targets and target setting”.
Happy New Year!
We wish all our network and everyone else interested in Beyond Budgeting a Happy New Year.
Did you notice that Beyond Budgeting was recently quoted in Financial Times shortly before year-end? Our chairman, Bjarte Bogsnes, was interviewed by the Financial Times and we are very happy that this later led to a short article in FT.
Click here to read the article. Please, notice that you need to sign in to read it. You can register here.
