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Tips of Taoism

We share so many apocalyptic thoughts publicly and privately these days. Whether on climate, looming overpopulation, mass immigration, Trump or European unification. Or about robotics and artificial...

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Suprising analyses

Controllers delivering surprising analyses. Of course they should. But what to analyze?   Ask any CFO what more their controllers should do. The answers will probably all point in the same...

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Effectiveness of controllers

Financial top executives pay too little attention to the effectiveness of their controllers and the required coherence of initiatives to improve this. Although they sometimes do make successful...

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Quality of management information

Business managers and their controllers still see substantial improvement potential in the quality of their management information. The ball for this improvement is in the court of Finance. But how to...

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Why do I like Helmut Schmidt so much?

Last week former german chancellor Helmut Schmidt has passed away. For me as a controller and CFO partner he has always been and still is an inspiration: work hard to balance common sense with your emotions and always keep challenging your ideas and ideals to come up with practical solutions in a...

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Impact and controllers

We all agree. Professional controllers have great impact. But, what does impact actually mean? I really like this definition: impact is exercising influence on others and being recognized as an...

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René Descartes founder of excellent finance function

Business partnership, performance analyses, soft skills, role of the business vs. the financial controller. All necessary to attain Finance excellence. But, don’t these words sometimes bore you?...

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Becoming a business partner is fun and not difficult

OK, we all know most controllers have adequate professional knowledge. They are trained in rational thinking and in working with numbers. These are the basics of the profession. But, wouldn’t it...

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Rousseau puts every business controller on the spot

The modern controller owes a lot to our philosophers of the Enlightenment. I have already dedicated a few columns to this. It’s fun to look at the purpose and content of a controller’s job...

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Controllers: Draw the whole elephant!

The blind men and the elephant is a famous story from India. It gives an exact image of situations I often come across in my work. The story is about six blind travelers who meet an elephant on their...

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Immanuel Kant still shows the way to CFO

During a long drive I had time to listen to a lecture by Prof. Herman Philipse on the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant is one of Helmut Schmidt’s (Germany’s former chancellor)...

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The controller, Spinoza and Cheryl's birthday

What do these three have in common? A lot! All three address comparable issues. Now, a professional controller thinks: nice, but how does this work exactly? It goes like this. The whole world is...

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Controllers are journalists

Do you really enjoy a good story and analysis of a journalist? I do. For example, listening to Mark Doyle (BBC) talk about Africa, Ulrich Kienzle (ARD) about the Middle-East and Jan Balliauw (VRT)...

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How independent are you?

Independent controllers make better decisions and create higher returns. In making the right decisions the analyses made by an objective controller play a crucial role on all levels of the...

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Long live the rearview mirror!

You probably know the Mythbusters TV show on Discovery Channel? Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman bust myths constantly . But, not always. In any case we as viewers never know the outcome beforehand. Adam...

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Of course your integrity is non-negotiable!

It’s time to bust another myth in Finance. Episode 2: The myth of the high integrity controller. Of course your integrity as a controller is non-negotiable. Is it? It is not often discussed...