Controlling Excellence Award 2024 for Bosch

"It thus addresses a central pain point for many companies and develops a concrete solution that significantly relieves the burden on controllers and enables them to use freed-up capacities for in-depth analyses and management-relevant issues," says jury chairman Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer, explaining the decision for the winning project on the highly relevant topic of sustainability.

With its controlling solution "myGreenBusiness", the technology and services company is improving the management and reporting of key sustainability management indicators. At the same time, it makes it easier to implement the external reporting requirements of the EU taxonomy and expand them into a group-wide, digital taxonomy reporting system. On the one hand, the aim is to contribute to the company's growth targets with sustainability. On the other hand, it is intended to support Bosch in its long-term focus on the balance between economic, ecological and social action.

Integrated view enables holistic control

The central building block 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 reduces the workload thanks to the high degree of digitalization: previously manual routine activities, such as maintaining traditional Excel spreadsheets, are no longer necessary. Controllers can make the sustainable alignment of their organizational unit's product portfolio transparent based on the financial indicators of the taxonomy - an ideal basis for their role as a business partner to management. "With just a few clicks, we gain insight into our taxonomy key figures along 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 rollout to end users began in February 2024. In the final expansion stage, around 950 users across the company in central functions, business units and legal units will work with "myGreenBusiness". "During development, we were able to draw on the extensive experience we had already gained with digitalization in the financial sector," says Patrick Hehl, and: "The integration of an existing controlling solution with which developers and users were already familiar was also essential for the rapid success."

Bosch's myGreenBusiness combines current requirements

The taxonomy KPIs of sales and investment and operating expenses reflect Bosch's sustainability performance in accordance with the EU taxonomy in myGreenBusiness. This enables early countermeasures to be taken if targets are not met. "With the introduction of myGreenBusiness, we can implement the legal requirements of the EU taxonomy more easily. The Group-wide transparency of our sustainable products will also give us a competitive advantage thanks to more efficient processes and the ability to manage the product portfolio holistically," explains Dr. Marco Möhrer, Co-Project Manager in the Corporate Office Sustainability Business Management at Bosch.

Bringing project experience to the controlling community

Bosch's own IT solution myGreenBusiness is part of a project that aims to implement the EU Taxonomy and the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) throughout the company. Patrick Hehl emphasizes the advantages of the collaboration: "The jointly designed controlling application shows the great potential offered by the close fusion of the disciplines of controlling, sustainability and finance." Both co-project managers agree on the importance of overarching teamwork. Dr. Marco Möhrer comments with regard to the award: "Sustainability is a topic that everyone in business is equally committed to. We therefore want to contribute our experience from the project to the controlling community - the ICV Controlling Excellence Award is an incentive for us to do so."

Austrian Post and Vetter Pharma-Fertigung also impress

Bosch's project beat the submissions from Vetter Pharma-Fertigung GmbH & Co. KG, Ravensburg, and Österreichische Post AG, Vienna, which were also nominated for the ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2024. KG, Ravensburg, and Österreichische Post AG, Vienna, which were also nominated for the ICV Controlling Excellence Award 2024. Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer emphasizes: "We as the jury are very convinced that the nominated solutions once again stand for excellence in controlling in an exemplary manner and cover the entire spectrum between innovative solutions with exemplary character - in addition to Robert Bosch, Österreichische Post with an agile controlling framework - and successful implementation of integrated corporate management in medium-sized companies such as Vetter Pharma."

Austrian Post: Agile principles further rolled out in financial work

The controlling team at Austrian Post has been working on an agile framework for the entire Group controlling department in order to be able to react better and faster to changing conditions. To this end, a new prioritization process for the top issues of the following year, OKRs as a tool for more complex tasks and a so-called "Cycle of Clarity", which is intended to ensure clearer objectives, were developed. Utz Schäffer praises the fact that "step by step, the agile principles are now also being rolled out to other aspects of work in the finance department" and: "As a result, we are not only seeing shorter process throughput times and progress in process and project quality in Austrian Post's controlling department. The agile transformation has also led to more personal responsibility, new development paths for controllers and a stronger focus on strategic topics."

Vetter Pharma production: Consistent, comprehensive approach impresses

Vetter Pharma-Fertigung has set itself the task of operationalizing the Vetter Finance Strategy 2025 using the example of integrated corporate management, with the aim of further developing a holistic strategic and operational management concept based on fully integrated and automated data. The concept includes rolling 24-month sales planning 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 the context of a medium-sized company", because: "As a result, Vetter Pharma has seen a significant reduction in corporate management costs, 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, the ICV has presented the Controlling Excellence Award to convincing controlling projects that provide significant support for the submitting company because they are as innovative as they are practical. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer (WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management), the jury members Prof. Dr. Andreas Seufert (Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society, Institute for Business Intelligence at Steinbeis University Berlin), Prof. Dr. Ute Vanini (Kiel University of Applied Sciences, among others), Roland Iff (former CFO Geberit, among others); Dipl. Wirt. Ing. Jens Bieniek (former CFO BLG Logistics, among others) and Dr. rer. pol. Lars Grünert (CFO TRUMPF Werkzeugmaschinen), who will ultimately be able to call the international reputation of the ICV Controlling Excellence Award their own in addition to the title and prize money. The main sponsors of the 3,000 euro prize are Atvisio and smartPM.solutions. Applications are open until the end of January for the current year's award.

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

The International Controller Association (ICV), with its head office in Wörthsee, Germany, has set standards for controllers and controllers alike for almost 50 years and is now the competence center for controlling excellence in Europe. The approximately 6,000 members and around 260 corporate members benefit from a wide-ranging network, central contacts, top-class specialist events, awards for excellent work and more than 60 working groups. These have a regional focus and are dedicated to specific industries or specialist topics. The association brings together theory and practice, trends and proven methods, specialist knowledge and expertise and thus offers a complete range of services for controllers, CFOs and anyone who focuses on controlling and corporate management.

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

2024 Bosch - myGreenBusiness - Digitization of EU taxonomy reporting

2023 Merck KGaA - Enabling High-Impact Culture in Financial Steering

2022 Deutsche Post DHL Group - Integration of sustainability targets in controlling at Deutsche Post DHL Group

2021 Robert Bosch GmbHController of the Future - People make the Difference

2020 BASF SEPACE - Predictive Analytics Estimate

2019 Unitymedia GmbH, Electricity - Value Stearing Roadmap. Establishment of value-oriented management

2018 Robert Bosch GmbHBig data-based approach to optimizing NWC at Bosch Diesel Systems

2017 EDEKA Handelsgesellschaft Südwest mbH, a guiding solution for a comprehensive change in the management system and controlling

2016 Covestro Germany AGComprehensive redesign of the entire controlling system as a result of the carve-out of Covestro from the Bayer Group

2015 RWE AGConsideration of biases in decision-making processes

2014 EliteMedianet GmbHControlling & Analysis Team, MEDIA-KOMPASS project Regression-based optimization of advertising budget allocation

2013 Deutsche Lufthansa AGBandwidth planning project team, bandwidth simulation in the airline passenger business

2012 Otto GmbH & Co KG, Service Center Supplier Traffic, introduction of activity-based costing in the Otto Group's Service Center Supplier Traffic

2011 McDonald's Germany IncControlling, Project Team Controlling, Initiative Controlling McCafé

2010 Federal Employment AgencyControlling, development of the "SAMP" tool

2009 FIEGE Foundation GmbH & Co. KGBernd Voss, representing the Logistics Controlling Team

2008 Lufthansa CityLine GmbHRealignment of corporate management

2008 Wittlinger Therapy Center / Dr. Vodder AcademyDevelopment of process, quality and financial controlling in interaction

2007 Hansgrohe AGBusiness Development, Sales Up! - Growth against the trend!

2006 Kaufhof Warenhaus AGControlling & Projects, Market-oriented store management

2005 T-Online International AGManagement of growth companies via the efficiency matrix

2004 Aventis Pharma Deutschland GmbH, FACTs Team, Finance Analyzing & Controlling Tools - FACTs

2003 SICK AG WaldkirchController team, planning and reporting concept One Page Only - OPO

Source: www.icv-controlling.com