Key functions of controlling

The dynamic business world does not allow companies to remain in one place. The changing realities of the market force entrepreneurs to constantly test new practices and strategies that will effectively enable them to achieve their goals, improving the functioning of the entire organization.

What is controlling?

Aiming to understand the essence of control, this instrument can be defined as the adoption by the cooperating cells of the enterprise of a unified method of thinking and acting, which greatly facilitates the effective management of the entire organization, further improving the rational making of key decisions by management. Thus, controlling is a basic system that is responsible for supporting the management of the company as a whole.

Multidimensional control becomes possible by integrating the organization’s internal mechanisms with the latest technologies that facilitate the collection, gathering and processing of key data. In addition, controlling builds favorable conditions for adopting a slightly broader perspective, focusing on the forward-looking analysis of activities that will ultimately, with the use of appropriate resources of the company, bring it closer to achieving the desired goals.

Controlling includes four functions – planning, control, steering and coordination. Due to their differentiation, pursuing the development of each of these areas provides an opportunity to introduce comprehensive business activities that increase awareness of the potential opportunities and risks of undertaking individual activities.

Controlling functions

• Planning – one of the basic tasks of controlling is to set specific goals for the company, which is closely related to the planning function itself, both in the short term and in the long term. The set goals often take the form of KPIs, making it easier to verify the degree of their implementation at later stages. As a result, it becomes possible to create a vision of the company’s development that is clear to all employees. At the same time, in addition to clearly defining the desired results, the planning function is also responsible for defining the means and timeframe necessary to achieve them.
• Controlling – represents the most obvious of all controlling functions. At this stage, the most important element is to make a reliable comparison of the company’s authentic results with the already developed plan. Such control of the realization of the established goals creates the basis for conducting a multidimensional analysis of deviations to discover the genesis of their occurrence. The next step is to make the necessary adjustments so that the company can maximize the efficiency of its operations in the future.
• Control – the primary activities in this area revolve around making important decisions related to correcting previously established assumptions or goals, such as recalculating original costs or updating adopted budgets. These activities are designed to help the company get to its desired position in the business world as soon as possible. At the same time, the essence of control is still combined with further monitoring of the actual state, focusing on the implementation of the most critical tasks despite registered deviations.
• Coordination – this function is responsible for increasing the efficiency of the overall management system, bringing it to a state where the benefits of coordination exceed the costs of its implementation. Ensuring the coordination of activities increases the comfort and efficiency of work, ensuring that individual units have the right degree of alignment and achieve their own goals in line with the overall interests of the company.

Controlling – examples

INCO Group

The company is characterized by diversified activities hooked on the production of household chemicals, medicinal products, cosmetics, plastic packaging or even publishing activities and real estate trading. Every year there is a noticeable increase in the export of goods to the European Union and Eastern European countries. However, with the increase of its reach, the company clashed with the problem of efficient accounting for such an extensive budget. It turned out to be a necessity to introduce a specialized information system that would enable optimal handling of such a large data package.

INCO Group therefore decided to invest in a specialized controlling tool – the Eureca system, which, based on data warehouse technology, made it possible to create a multidimensional budget. By introducing controlling improvements, the company managed to bring the initially overly complicated budget under control, paying attention to the phased budgeting of departmental costs and direct costs related to production itself. An additional benefit also became the ability to enter plans, and monthly sales forecasts or optimize fixed and variable costs.

The implementation of control solutions has streamlined the necessary planning process, which previously, with such diverse business areas, was extremely complicated. At the same time, the developed database has been integrated with the field system, so that employees performing duties at all levels of the organization have immediate access to key information.

Infinite

Infinite is one of the most rapidly growing companies providing IT solutions to a variety of businesses both in Europe and outside the MENA area. The specifics of the industry and the exponential expansion of its reach led the brand to strongly believe that it needed to include in its activities a comprehensive solution to facilitate the consolidation and reporting of results, which at the same time would meet the ever-increasing demand for information in the area of controlling.

Although the brand already had Excel-based controlling, the dynamics of the tasks at hand required the introduction of a tool that would allow faster work on more parameters. Therefore, Infinite decided to implement the more powerful Eureca system, ensuring the chance to flexibly develop the entire reporting system and efficiently analyze even particularly diverse data.

LS Airport Services

LS Airport Services is described as one of Poland’s largest so-called “handling” companies, currently serving more than 50 air carriers from around the world. Over time, the management of such a thriving brand decided to implement a tool to support important management control. The main motivating factor became the prospect of eliminating constraints hampering the further development of the company resulting from the time-consuming nature of the overall process of creating the necessary reports.

Looking for a comprehensive tool to help optimize the areas of data integration, budgeting, planning, reporting, analysis and forecasting, the company decided to implement the Eureca system in 2020.

With the introduction of a more advanced controlling tool, it became possible to automate budgeting, analysis or reporting processes, leading to an increase in the overall value of controlling throughout the company. In addition, awareness of the real impact on costs among managers has also been strengthened, raising their involvement in the current business situation.

Controlling functions – summary

Properly implemented controlling, additionally supported by modern tools and IT systems, increases the efficiency of the entire company’s operations, enabling precise determination of realistic business objectives. Regardless of the specifics of the industry in which individual companies operate daily, judicious use of the potential of controlling, even in the short term, can accelerate the process of collecting, processing, analyzing, as well as interpreting data key to further business development.

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