An unpredictable environment requires a Dynamic management strategy
Beyond Budgeting and Dynamic Management Models
Beyond Budgeting is a collective term for ideas and principles that aim to look beyond traditional governance according to command-and-control. In the traditional way of thinking, the budget must stand as a symbol of the shortcomings we see. What you instead want to achieve are relevant instruments that continuously support the strategic direction of the business, and an organization with the capacity to continuously act in the direction of the strategy. The fundamental thoughts behind this are that:
- Our business environment is changing unpredictably
- A business needs to be agile in relation to it's environment
- Today's businesses are too complex to be controlled remotely, and in advance
Because the concept Beyond Budgeting risks focusing too one-sidedly on the budget itself, we at Ekan Management more often use the term dynamic control models. It reflects the breadth and depth of what the area is really about. As we see it, the conditions can be described through 6 perspectives:
Our mission to help our clients to shape their own dynamic control models is based on these perspectives - from the current situation to the implementation of a desired situation, which is defined in close collaboration with the customer. Our own experiences as advisors and the member companies in the BBRT network, tells us that the businesses that succeed best have:
- A well founded knowledge of their own business
- Understood the principles of dynamic management
- Realized how to apply the principles to best support their unique business prerequisites and demands
Join our 2021 webinar series on dynamic management
The series of webinars that Ekan Management is conducting together with BBI and 1Company in 2021 aims to strengthen knowledge of the principles of Beyond budgeting and dynamic management. Furthermore, they aim to start a thought process in participant's minds, start thinking about how their own business function and what the alternative would look like. When you are ready to get started, we at Ekan Management are here to support that work. Once we have started, the BBRT network and it's many member companies around the world is also there to inspire and listen to your successes, and occasional bumps along the way.
Webinar:
Webinar 1: February 11, 2021 at 12-1pm. The theme is how ideas and methods within Beyond Budgeting can make financial management and thus entire companies more agile. Moderators are Knut Fahlén (Ekan Management) and Rikard Olsson (Beyond Budgeting Institute / Ekan Management).
Webinar 2: March 11 at 12-13 p.m. The theme is order and finding out information in order to be able to obtain quality-assured and appropriate decision-making material, which is a prerequisite for being able to let go of the edge and steer more agile. The title is "BI as it should be - and the way there". Moderators are Helena Blomberg and Malin Wennebro (Ekan Management).
Webinar 3: 24 March 2021 at 12-1pm. The theme is "Future Finance - Requirements and conditions for future support functions". Agile businesses need proactively focused support functions where time and resources can be focused on value creation, and not on the time that has already passed. Moderators are Rikard Olsson (Beyond Budgeting Institute / Ekan Management) and Annica Delin (Ekan Management).
Webinar 4: 20 May 2021 at 12-1pm. At this spring's last webinar in the series on Dynamic management, we will focus on how. We get many questions about how to develop the management model and organization to improve it's efficiancy and effectiveness over time. The task is often overwhelming - where to start? The title of this webinar is: "From insight to effect - The path to dynamic management".
In this webinar, we will talk about how organizations can move forward step by step based on conscious decisions and priorities. It is often said that the best exercise is the exercise that takes place. This also applies to development work. We will go through a number of steps and tools necessary to move forward at the pace that your organization requires and masters.
- Management- versus Operational responsibility and contributions
- When to boost progress with external skills and competences
- How to structure the work given current conditions
- Available tools and experiences
Moderators: Malin Wennebro, Senior Management Consultant and Head of Business Area Strategy & Management at Ekan Management, and Lucas Rolfsson, Senior Management Consultant and Expert in Program and Portfolio Management
Webinar 5: 20 October 2021 at 12-1pm. We are kicking off the autumn by inviting you to a new webinar on the umbrella theme Dynamic Control - This time we talk about how the management's actual needs can be translated into reports that lead to insightful discussions and thus effective decision-making. Moderators are Rikard Olsson (Beyond Budgeting Institute / Ekan Management) and Andreas Hagberg (Ekan Management).
Webinar 6: November 18, 2021 at 12-1pm. Welcome to a webinar on the topic of Efficient and Automated Financial Project Management. Helena Blomberg at Ekan Management goes through how this can be achieved by using existing source data from financial and business systems and combining with additional data, such as calculations and other info, in an overall decision support. We will take as our starting point examples from the real estate industry, but the principles can be used regardless of industry.
For in-depth knowledge of Dynamic management strategy
Along with our webinars, we also offer excerpts from Knut Fahlén's book Dynamic Management Strategy: A guide to management innovation and competitive advantage (2019). The excerpts presents the overall state of knowledge in dynamic management at a deeper level, based on the six perspectives described above. The entire book is available for purchase from us at Ekan Management, or anywhere where books are sold. Knut Fahlén is a senior consultant at Ekan Management, a key figure in BBRT for the past 10 years and PhD in Business Administration from the Gothenburg School of Economics. In 2019, he was elected as an ICMCI Academic Fellow to contribute to the development of the management consulting profession.