International Controlling Community – For an ever more global world
The world of controlling is becoming increasingly international. More and more people are interested in the German and in the Central European way of controlling.
One year ago we started our LinkedIn Group Controller Akademie International and one year later we count more than 1,200 members from nearly all countries in the world. The fastest growing groups were observed in Spain and the Adriatic countries, who represent more than half of all the members. Nearly 100 members from Brazil are actively looking for our concepts, too. The download link for the ICV and IGC Controlling Perspectives was massively used.
In the comments we can read that our way of controlling is in some countries quite far away from what members experience, as Controlling and Finance departments are not separated (like in the German-speaking countries), and therefore financial reporting due dates dominate the daily business. One member from Denmark commented: “…but my experience is that controlling is mostly what I will call making numbers (monthly reporting) that are often prepared too slowly (i.e. they are too old) to get the attention from management…“ Very often this is a vicious cycle. If the management does not feel too much benefit from controllers and don’t even know what service they can (additionally) provide, they are not willing to dedicate more resources to controlling activities and to providing a better service. Members therefore appreciate the controlling perspectives as a fantastic “job description” they can sell to management.
On the other hand, we can observe that more and more European participants of our seminars are additionally interested in the US way of accounting and the International Financial Reporting Standards. Not in competition to our controlling, but to complete an international career. When Controller Akademie started a cooperation with IMA (International Institute of Accountants) to carry out IMA’s Certified Management Accountant (CMA) programme in Europe a year ago, we did not expect such an interest and demand for this certificate, which is highly acknowledged in US, Asia and the Arabic countries. At the same time IMA, as the biggest US association of management accountants, is looking to Europe and is very interested in our way of controlling. On 24th June Conrad Günther, board member of ICV and Controller Akademie met with the President and CEO of IMA, Mr Jeffrey C. Thomson, William F. Knese, Chair 2013-2014, and Jim Gurowka, Vice President International Development, in New Orleans, where he handed over our controlling perspectives, in which they were very interested.
We are currently experiencing the controlling community coming closer and closer together all the time in an ever more global world. This promises exciting and interesting future projects and partnerships.
Happy controlling
Dietmar Pascher
Published in Controller Magazin Spezial, 2013, page 5