Overview

When Jack Welsh described the budgeting process as the "bane of corporate America," he was articulating the frustration of many senior executives and academics who recognise that this annual exercise is rarely justified in today's fast changing, highly competitive environment.

If budgeting is to have any value at all, it needs a radical overhaul. In today's dynamic marketplace, budgeting can no longer serve as a company's only management system; it must integrate with and support dedicated strategy management systems, process improvement systems, and the like.

In this paper, Professor Peter Horvath and Dr Ralf Sauter present what's wrong with the current approach to budgeting and how to fix it.