Performance Management and Planning and Budgeting
From a practitioner perspective, there has been widespread dissatisfaction with planning and budgeting. Companies are spending considerable amounts of money and effort in planning and budgeting, but many practitioners are concerned that all this activity is not worth the effort. Jan Wallander, the former CEO of Swenska Handlesbanken has always argued "The organisation is not interested in budgets. You may as well just say at the start - try harder next year to do better than this year - and then not bother with all the form filling." Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, for example, says: "The budget is the bane of corporate America. It never should have existed… Making a budget is an exercise in minimalization. You're always getting the lowest out of people, because everyone is negotiating to get the lowest number".
Currently there is an argument over whether companies should opt for better budgeting or take the CAMI beyond budgeting roundtable approach and opt for no budgeting at all.
Our research found that companies who adapted their budgeting and planning processes to their own unique environment performed best. So we have concluded that to improve the planning and budgeting process, organisations have to think through the requirements of their own planning and budgeting system and then develop an approach that matches their needs and their own operating environment.
Research agenda
Our main objective is to develop research in the following areas:
- Understanding dynamics of the planning and budgeting process and, in particular, where it adds and destroys value for the business
- Establishing best practices in planning and budgeting
- Developing frameworks and methodologies that enable planning and budgeting to become more reliable and ultimately more predictive
Collaborators for projects in any of these areas are encouraged and welcome.
Research projects
Neely A Sutcliff MR Heyns HR - 2001 - Driving Value Through Strategic Planning and Budgeting.pdf
Contact
For any further information please contact Mike Bourne - m.bourne@cranfield.ac.uk.