Maturity of business controlling in a global technology company

Business controlling’s changing role towards a business partner has been receiving much attention in academic literature and organisations for many years. It is expected that by becoming more business-oriented business controlling is able to deliver more value to organisations and have greater contribution to achieving organisational goals. However, as this role change is a complex and highly contextual process, it seems that in many organisations business controlling is unable to succeed in achieving the desired level of business partnering. Further research is required regarding this increasingly business-oriented role of business controlling to enhance the understanding on how it can be successfully pursued in organisations. This master’s thesis studies the maturity of business controlling in a global technology company. The objective of the study was to analyse how business controlling supports top management work and decision-making, how it can improve the support and how its role can be developed towards the role of a business partner. The thesis was conducted as a qualitative single case study. The empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with the financial and business management of the case company. The findings from the current state analysis show that the role of business controlling varies significantly within the organisation. In some respect business controlling is actively involved in the business and exhibits high business orientation especially at the highest management and business unit level. Issues regarding the lack of support from business controlling are most prevalent in the lower level management and when it comes to the local business controlling functions in different areas and countries. Other issues in the case company primarily relate to the information provision aspect of business controlling and the information systems and tools. These issues were found to significantly hinder the role development of business controlling in the case company. Number of improvement areas were identified in the case company regarding people and roles, processes, information and reporting, systems and tools, and accounting and calculations. Various factors enabling and influencing the development of the business orientation of business controlling were also identified in the study as well as benefits that are expected to result from achieving the role of a business partner. Based on the results an action plan was developed for the case company for improving the support from business controlling to the business and for developing the role of business controlling towards an increasingly business-oriented role in the future