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billion in sales have made more changes to tools than processes, unlike companies with more
than $1 billion in sales. These larger groups, where change is more time consuming and where
investments in tools carry a higher cost, evidently express a more pressing need to change
processes in order to gain in-house agility, while planning or managing projects dedicated to tools
over a longer period. Unexpected increased competition could occur from smaller players who
are more agile and ahead in updating their tools, thus improving the quality of their service
rendered to internal and external customers.
Taking a geographical point of view, we find that Europe shows a delay in changing tools and this
is even more marked in listed companies (25%). Stock market listing shows its influence; in the
USA, 30% of respondents who finalized the change of tools are listed on the stock exchange,
compared with 10% in Europe. This is proof that the market demand for increased profitability
deeply affects the functioning of companies and Management Control. Nevertheless, Europe,
with a significantly higher rate of projects in progress, probably intends to catch up.
"One of the Big Data's challenges is to find employees who
are able to make the data speak: they need to understand
the business well enough to extract relevant information
without an a priori research axis"
Evelyne Mercier, CFO, Manutan
Concerning the evolution of the capability of ensuring "consistency" (vision of the whole
company), the level of the changes undertaken
is similar regardless of the companies’ turnover.
Stock exchange listing, on the other hand, has a real impact: for 40% of American respondents
(USA) belonging to listed companies, the change in competencies related to "consistency" has
already taken place. Undoubtedly this is a strong influence of the "Business Partner" concept,
considering that the Management Controller must understand the functioning of the company as
a whole in order to accompany the business in a changing economic and financial environment.
Logically, there is a need for change of personal competencies (ranked 4th in the adaptations
being considered; 48% of the changes in progress or finalized). Leading the change of tools,
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
To Do
Ongoing
Done
Other
Europe
Need to change his/her tools -- TOTAL
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
To Do
On going
Done
Other
Europe
Need to change his/her tools -- % of listed
companies
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