IAFEI Quarterly - Special Issue

19 Materials contained in this publication may be freely quoted or reprinted, provided credit is given to the source : International Observatory of Management Control - DFCG – Decision Performance Conseil www.conseil-dpc.com Note the importance of the re-forecasting activity in very large companies (62%) and particularly in listed companies. This seems logical given the risk of disappointing analysts' expectations - something which can significantly impact the stock price. Therefore, listed companies seem to invest more time in the communication of forecasts for the fiscal year or for the next quarters. Even more so, the choice to move from a classical calendar budget process to a “ rolling forecast” process, where (re-) forecasts over several quarters replace the budget, may impact this statis- tic. In addition, we observe that very large companies spend less time on reporting and tend obtain their full reporting faster. This finding is undoubtedly linked to the many “fast close” initiatives and to the continuous improvement efforts of the reporting process. Finally, one remark on the important amount of time allocated to treasury activities (43%) by Management Controllers in companies with a revenue below 50M$. In these smaller organiza- tions, the Management Controller’s role is probably less specialized and she needs to be able to operate on a wider range of activities. The time spent on reporting slows down the development of higher value adding activities By comparing the added value from different activities with the time spent on them, we note that the work with the operational teams is perceived as an activity with very strong added value; yet Manage- ment Controllers do not seem to be able to allocate more time to this activity in the real world. On the other hand, reporting is per- ceived as only moderately value adding and yet the time spent on it is very important.