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Why Budgeting Kills Your Company
HBSWK Pub. Date: Aug '1 1, 2003
Why doesn't the budget process work? Read what experts say
about not only changing your budgeting process,
but whether your company should dispense with budgets
entirely. by Loren Gary
The average billion-dollar company spends as many as 25,000
person-days per year putting together the budget. If this
all paid off in shareholder return, that would be fine. But few
organizations can make that claim. In fact, many firms
now question the ROI of traditional budgeting altogether and
are looking for alternatives that reduce time and better
align spending with strategy.
Look at your own company's budget process: Has it really
helped you do a better job of belt tightening during the
current slowdown? Many companies have reverted to more
centralized command-and-control procedures to keep a
tight rein on costs-but the dynamics of the budgeting proc3ss
ofter rmder.rqine this effort.
"In tough times like these, any signifrcant real cost growth feels
imprudent and is hard to justify for most businesses,"
writes Mike Baxter, a partner in the consulting firm Marakon
Associates (f{ew York City), in a recent company
publication. "Business units have used their budgets as a
bargaining chip, bidding high to get a larger slice of the pie
while keeping their cards close to their chest.
"The CEO has had no choice but to get them back into shape,
though he lacks any clear line of sight for identifying and
challenging the least valuable resources," Baxter continues. All
too often, the CEO must opt for across-the-board
cuts-even though he knows that this approach penalizes the
high-performing units and props up the underperforming
ones. The result is a decoupling of the company's resource
allocation process from the highest-value strategic
opporfunities.
The answer, some experts say, is to dispense with budgets
entirely-and
The answer, some experts say, is to replace them with a system
of rolling forecasts and key performance
dispense with budgets entirely. indicators that shifts strategic
decision making to customer-facing edges of
the organization. Others advocate less sweeping but still
significant
changes: Housing the budgeting and strategic planning
functions in one office, establishing top-down goals three to
four years out, and requiring all business units to explore the
budget implications of several strategic alternatives.
The following discussion will help stimulate your thinking
about how your own company's budgeting process can be
transformed from an exasperating exercise in pork barreling and
interdepartmental brinksmanship to a tool for
achieving strategic alignment.
How fi xed-p erfo rmanc e contracts ensure underperformanc e
At its simplist, a company's budget process consists of each unit
producing a sales forecast (assuming it's a profit
center) and a capital needs forecists. "I've seen some annual
budget processes that didn't take any time at all," says
William J. Bruns Jr., Henry R. Byers Professor of Business
Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School and
a visiting professor at Northeastern University. After each unit's
sales and capital needs forecasts are complete, "senior
*unug.*.nt holds a three-day meeting to discuss them and then
makes its decisions. Of course, at the other end of the
spectrum, you have these 200-page budget books that get
produced, requiring months of meetings."
In some instances, the budget process consumes up to six
months and20 percent of management's time.
Most companies' approach to budgeting increases the chances
that the process will be arduous, expensive, and
frustrating; says Jeierny Hope, .o*ttroi with Robin Fraser of
Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Freefrom
h+r^. //hlacurlr hhc cdr r /f nnl c/nrinf ifern .ihf rn I ?i d:? 6) 2,
Rr t:fin qn e e r r /i103
the Annual Performance Trap (Harvard Business School Press,
2003). The culprit is what he calls thefixed-
performance contract "The targets for sales, costs, and key
ratios that are spelled out in the budget become an implicit
contract," he says. A recent Hackett survey found between 60
percent and 90 percent of the top 2,000 global
companies have this sort of contract. "And there are usually
hnancial incentives attached: Career prospects and
bonuses ride on this contract-incentives for hitting the targets
amount to as much as 97 percent of a U.S. manager's
annual salary.
"There's terrific pressure on everyone to make those targets;
hence the distortion, misrepresentation, and gaming that
can happen in even the most ethical companies," Hope
continues. "If you're a manager trying to increase spending or
get a eapital project approved, yo,tr put'itt.fuT'5Opercent mote
than you need, knowing you''ll get argued down by
senior management to what you originally wanted."
At the same time, the fixed-performance contract fosters the
fear in managers that if they don't spend what's 1eft over
in their budgets at the end of the year, their funding for the next
year will be reduced. Cost discipline thus takes a back
seat to furf protection. The budget process may help establish a
ceiling on costs, but the intemal politics of the fixed-
performance contract ensure that there is also a cost floor-in
other words, that the cost savings aren't as sizable as
they might be.
As long as budgeting, a vestige of the old command-and-control
approlch to management, remains in place, the newer
tools designed to decentralize strategic decision making wlti
t^er'er bcnrevti their fulIpotential, Hope and Fraser argue.
The solution is not better budgeting "but rather abandoning
budgeting entirely and building an alternative management
model," they write. Among the features of the approach they
recommend, which is currently being used by
organizations in a range of industries and countries, are the
following:
Goals based on longer-term external benchmarks instead of
internally negotiated annual targets. Adopt
benchmark goals based on "industry best-in-class performance
measures or direct competitors," Hope and Fraser write;
and give teams "an extended period of time to reach fl1srn"-two
to three years. Atlanta-based eye-care company
CIBA Vision found that the move to competitor and market
performance benchmarks--chief among them sales
growth, refum on sales, and economic value-added (EVA)
growth-not only helped it shorten and simplify its
budgeting process, it also reduced the amount of budget gaming.
Evaluation and rewards based on relative-improvement
contracts. Such contracts involve "a whole team ... setting
and meeting a range of performance benchmarks over a period
of time," write Hope and Fraser. "Performance is then
evaluated by a peer review group (using relative measures) with
the benefit of hindsight." At the Swedish bank
Svenska Handelsbanken, the company's eleven regions compete
like teams in a league, trying to beat one another's
return on equity. Similarly, the 550 branches compete on two
other key performance indicators: Cost to income and
profit per employee. The relative standings are publicized
throughout the company. The uncertainty of this relative-
performance approach drives success. Each manager knows
from the outset "what has to be done to improve his or her
usual performance," Hope and Fraser write. But it is only in
hindsight that they know how well they have performed
relative to the other managers. This leads them to focus on
"maximizing profits at all times rather than playing games
with the numbers" to meet artificial annual targets.
Continuous and inclusive action planning. A five-quarter rolling
forecast
that provides projections for each of the five subsequent
quarters can help
eliminate the distortion caused by having financial incentives to
meet a
fixed target for a single fiscal year. A typical rolling forecast
may have only
a few line items: Orders, sales projections, costs, profitability,
cash flow,
and capital investment. But this information is enough to enable
managers
to focus on long-term issues that are fundamental to the
business's
success-for example, why customers are leaving or what's
wrong with a
particular product.
I've seen some annual budget
processes that didn't take any time at
all.
- William
J. Bruns Jr.,
HBS professor emeritus
Resources that are made available as needed, instead of
allocated in advance. Handelsbanken gives its branch
managers the freedom to decide which products to sell and to
set their own prices and discounts. (Branch managers
h rrn. //hh swk. hbs. edu/tool s/ori nt i tem. i htm I ? id:3 623
&t:fi nance rU3t0.
know that whatever decisions they make about prices and
products, their costs must be about 40 percent of income,)
Similarly, each branch manager gets to decide what resources
the unit needs.
To make its central services more responsive to market
demands, Handelsbanken conducts an annual round of
negotiations in which cost estimates and the services
underpinning them are discussed by all involved. Regional and
branch managers can challenge the prices and even choose to go
with outside vendors. Since the early 1990s, branch
managers have had the authority to determine staffing levels
and set staff salaries. At first, senior managers predicted
that it would lead to an increase in the number of workers. But
the opposite has occurred; Hope cites this as ewidence
that the further out toward the customer-facing nodes of an
organization you push the profit responsibility, the more
cost-conscious and innovative the employee behavior you get.
Indeed, since Handelsbanken abandoned budgeting in
the early 1970s, it has bested its Scandinavian rivals on return
on equity, total shareholder return, cost-to-income ratio,
and customer satisfaction.
The budget as an agent of strategic alignment
Other experts are not as eager for a complete overhaul.
Harvard's Bruns suggests keeping budgets but restructuring
compensation programs so that managers no longer have an
incentive to favor short-term goals over the longer-term
health of the company, By getting rid of the inflexible approach
to short-term targets, you answer the problern that lies
at the heart of Hope and Fraser's critique of budgeting.
Although Marakon's Baxter also doesn't advocate the whoreral;
-upl-cilr,c.rr of traditional budgeting, he does believe
that changes must be made to reforge the link between a
company's strategic planning and resource allocation.
"Budgeting and performance are typically overseen by the
finance department," he says, "whereas planning is
coordinated by a strategy department. Often, the two processes
aren't well integrated, resulting in strategies that are
often dictated by the budget process instead of vice versa. When
it comes time for senior management to review the
units' investment proposals, their decisions are often blind to
their impact on long-term value.
"Resource allocation should be about putting funds behind the
right high-value opportunities," Baxter continues. He
recommends creating an all-in-one process in which the CEO
takes the lead in setting the strategic planning goals for
all units, reviewing altemative strategies with business units,
and linking resources to delivery of the alternatives with
the highest value and best performance characteristics. With
this approach, you're more likely to get not only the level
of performance you're seeking, but also the particular
implementation path that you're after.
Although you want to encourage bottom-up thinking about how
best to achieve the desired performance, you also need
to create some discipline. "Many business unit managers are
overly optimistic about the long-run performance
potential of their strategies, leading them to overinvest in the
near term," says Baxter. Senior management can provide
valuable top-down guidance here by using three- to five-year
strategic plans to define the boundaries of these
discussions and then making sure they're clearly communicated
at the outset of the resource allocation process. Next,
charge each business unit with developing several alternatives
as a way of helping the corporate center understand the
highest-value, highest near-term profit, and lor.vest-cost
options that exist in each unit. This helps create a genuine
dialogue between the corporate center and the units about the
resource and perforrnance tradeoffs involved in choosing
a particular alternative.
When you're clear on your strategic goals and have a process
that integrates strategic planning with resource allocation
and performance management, budgeting can actually work,
Baxter says. It becomep a mechanism for ensuring not
onlythat funds flow first to the strongest opportunities, but also
that those opportunities actually deliver on their
promise. EEI
Reprinted with permission from "Breaking the Budget Impasse,"
Harvard Management Update, May 2003.
See the latest issue of Harvard Management Update.
Loren Gary can be reached at [email protected],edu
L*+-. //1"1-c.rrL hhc er{r r /f nn'l c /nri nf i tem i hf-l ?i rl:? 61
7 Rr t:{t n en a c 11t3103
Annual Budgets: Companies Do Them All Wrong - WSJ.com
Page 1 of3
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Companies Get Budgets All Wrong
The annuol budgeting process leads ta bad decision-ntaking. It
needs a total ouerhtul.
3r, i{[r*iii:T I A. Lif.i?{]l-lAi.l i
Almost all companies prepare a budget, or annual operating
plan. And almost all companies do it wrong.
That shouldn't come as a surprise to managers, many of whom
are
highly critical about both the way budgets are prepared and the
way they are subsequently used. The typical budget process,
they
say, mainly serves to distract managers from doing their jobs
and
to discourage them from taking risks. It undermines integrity,
distorts information and leads to bad decision-making from
mailroom to boardroom.
They complain, for instance, about the endless meetings where
managers crunch and discuss numbers that have long since gone
out of date. They compiain that budget targets are almost
universally defined in backrvard-looking financial
terms and as a result don't reflect what successes*or failures*an
organization may currentlybe having.
At the same time, they say the budget processes too often serve
as
opportunities for self-aggrandizement-and enrichment-by
. undeserving andunscrupulous managers. Those who
earnthebest
, ',"' performance ratings are often the most skilled in
negotiating easily
achievable budget targets for themselves. Even more damaging,
many will manipulate numbers in their budget reports to inflate
results and artificialiy achieve short-term targets. And others
will
e spend money wastefully so as not to see a reduction in next
year'srF
budget allocation.
Can the problem be solved?
To a large extent it can, if companies can only recognize that
the annual budget process is too inflexible, too
infrequent, and too easy to manipulate, to accomplish alt of the
functions it is expected to-including
strategic planning, resource allocation, evaluating performance
and determining compensation.
Organizations need to blow apart the traditional budgeting
process, become more d5mamic and refocus on crucial
management functions individually' Here's a blueprint for doing
that.
Journal Report
lnsights from The Fxpcfts
Read more at WSJ.comileadershipRepo!'t
More in Leadershipl Corporate Finance
How Conrpanies Can Raise Prices Withotlt
Ai;enating CustsmelS.
lPJhen CFS$ Think Toa Fast.
C*n CFOs Alferd to lgnore Big Sata?
nnndng tl* *lldbi+ : :r,r!1. I .' , t lrr .x n',i{ri,, ": : z' i.
ilrrr# 4 [*Yir i'*;!* 9:ti.!!4
1. Start DYnamic Planning
Stop using annual budgets for strategic planning. Many
important
business decisions should be based on a realistic business plan'
But the traditional annual budget quickly becomes obsolete.
Some planning assumptions in such budgets
http://online.wsj .com/article/SB 1 00
0142412788732387390457857 1 8 10482331202.html
7t2412013
Annual Budgets: Companies Do Them All Wrong - WSJ.com
Page 2 of 3
inevitably turn out to be lwong. Managers need to update their
plans whenever something happens to change
their business unit's prospects in a material way. For most
organizations, updating plans annually, or even
quarterly, is not frequent enough. When relevant factors sueh as
interest rates, oil prices or competition
change, business plans have to adapt immediately. Incal line
managers are usually in the best position to
know when their plans have become obsolete. Trust them.
z. Allocate Money Where lt's Needed, Whenlt's Needed
No business unit or department should have to wait until next
year for more resolrrces when an unercpected
and important need arises. That discourages managers from
taking risks or otherwise deviating from the
actions proposed when the budget was prepared. After all,
managers who miss their budget targets could lose
theirjobs.
Additional budget allocations should be made whenever they are
requested. Since it isn't feasible for an
appropriations committee to meet constantly to review each
request, senior executives should move to relax
the financial constraints. They should trust managers to make
good decisions, and use minimal oversight
only over large commitments. If per{ormance and incentive
systems are effective, managers will be highly
motivated to make good decisions because they know they will
be held accountable later.
S. Don't Use Budgets to Euoluate Performance
Budgets are notoriously poor evaluation standards. It makes
little sense to judge performance based on target
numbers and assumptions that become quicHy out of date.
What's more, basing pay on budgets that the
managers themselves help create encourages them to
sandbag*that is, lower expectations*to give
themselves a better chance of meeting their goals.
The solution is simple Perforrnance evaluations must be kept
separate from the planning processes.
Managers should be judged based on how their organizations or
business units per{ormed in the actual
conditions faced in the given measurement period. Thus,
compare performance with that of peer
organizations facing the same, or similar, operating conditions.
If no such peers exist, come up with a
standard based on historical performance, adjusted for changes
in economic conditions, size of market,
interest rates, price ofoil and other key factors.
4. Deuise a Richer Set of Performance Metrics
Compensation and other management committees shouldn't rely
soiely on financial results, such as profits
and returns, when measuring the performance of business units
and nunagers. Such measures are backward-
looking and aren't reliable indicators of performance in the
short-run. Companies shor.rld supplement the
financial measures with metrics specificto each organizational
segment, some of which are leading indicators
of coming financial performance. Depending on the company,
these could include attaining significant new
customers, successes in research and development, or
improvements in production, customer satisfaction or
employee morale.
5. Make Bonuses Incremental
Managers often are tempted to manipulate their performance
metrics because of the way they are
compensated. At most companies, budgets define a level of
performance below which no bonuses are paid,
Many also set an upper threshold, above which no additional
bonuses can be earned. Such thresholds
eneourage managers who otherwise would be "out of the
money" to manipulate their unit's results. If
companies aligned bonuses in direct relation to measured
performance, with no thresholds, there would be
less temptation to manipulate results.
***
These five steps will result in a more adaptive and innovative
organization that responds quicHyto new
opportunities and threats; managers who won't be motiyated to
lie about their prospects or manipulate their
numbers; and better decision making because of more up-tc.date
and unbiased infonnation.
Yes, the newprocesses maybe just as time-consuming as the old
budgeting system was. But there will be a
big difference: The time spent will no longer be largely wasted.
http://online.wsj.com/arficle/S810001424127887323873904578
57181}482331202.h1m1 7/24/2013
maker of specialty vehicles, the tomers in fresh ways such as
Dudng the lecession, as busi- recession triggered a massive
through social-networking sites.
ness forecasts based on seem- overhaul of strategic planning.
Mr. Ullman says the bri{ge
ingly plausible swings in sales Officials'used.to draft a,one-
year"* plan succeeded, and he cites
smacked up against reality, exec- _. strategic plan and a
&reelyear- Penney's irnproved margins and
utives discovered that strategic Jiaaacial plan-and then review
lack of layoffs. Next month, he'll
planning doesn't always work. each one every'quarter. Chief Ex-
offer fellow directors his views
Some busiless leaders came ecutive John Sztykiel says that
about reviving his 2007 strategic
away convinced that the new relatively inflexible method plan
after he analyzes "whet}er
priority was to be able to shift bears some of the blame for it is
as relevant as it was three
course on the fly. Office Depot Spartan's sharp drop in sales
,years ago."
Inc., for example, began'updat- and gross profit during the fust
Other 'executives have em-
ing-.its- annual budget"'every* hine montJrs of 2009. braced
"just-in.timetr-decision: rnonth, starting The Charlotte, Mich.,
manu- . making, a tactic that Lowell
PRACIICE Other companies enough to shifting aeman4 tre
sultants McKinsey & Co., thinks
started to factor says. will spread dwing the.recovery.
rDr,rategrc rlans Lose ravor
Slump Sltowed Bqsses Value of Ftexibtlity, Quick Decisions
Bv Joanrrr s. Lw'N ,l{h / oour., meetings. B
"/
things," he explains, while
AND DANa MArrrou ' | " I For Spartan Motors Inc., a speeding
up efforts to woo cus-
inore"-extreme -scenarios.;.into Last July, lvlr. Sztyhel inaugU-
Prematwe decisions can create
their thinking. A few even set'up rated a tree.yearstrategicalan.-
excessive risks, he says, b,ut iop-
l'situation rooms,". where staff- that*re.-and.his lieutenank up-
portunity costs, are faritaiticr
erS glued to cirmputer screens date.every-monti;ifhe Spartan
when decisions are delayed for
monitored developments affect- CEO has started to see a payoff.
too long. McKinsey itself sogght
ingsalesandfinances. In November, the company ,to capitalize
on the recession-.
Now, even.though the econ- agreed to buy Utilimaster Corp.;
rattled environment with iti Ocr
omy is slowly pickhg up, those a maker of delivery vals an{l
tober 2008 opening of a Center
fresh habits aren't fading. 'lltris , custom chass'rs, for $45
millioh: for Managing Uncertainty
downtqr4 has changed the way Mr. Sztykiel is sure the deal .
headed by Mr, Bryan.
we will- think about oi:r business wouldn't have crossed his
radar : ill'ing decision'makfungclgsely*
for manyyears to come," says in time if he had.stuck with'
to'evolvingfacts'helpedamajor
Steve Odlan4. Office oepoi's,'quarterlystrategyreviews. .
U.S.produterof indus$-i4goiids
chaiiman and chief'executive. Martin Reeves, a senior part-'.
avoidswitching gears too sooni
Walt Shill, hehd of the North' , ner at' Boston . Consufting l..,
Batterqd by ijre downturn last
American management consult- Group, believes more busiless
,spring, the MqKinsey client
ing practice for Accenture Ltd., leaders will start to rely less-on
.'(which Mr. Bryan wouldnit
is even more blunt:.r'Stratery;as .static-dve:year-
strategic:ptans.: name) considered do-sing a large
we:4<nr!w'i!.js;'dead,4 he con- .and-more on roggh-
'Iadapti.re".. 'blant- Officials earefiilbf aslegSed
tends. "Cogperate clients idb- strategie-
sthatconsidei"rnqltiple.;,fte pluses and minuses of shgt-
cided that increased'flexibility-;scenaios. Before the fecessi,or
.:tinglit sdoner rather than later,
and'acceleratbtl decisionmaking - and the housing crisis,
appliance
tlutr,
Bryan recalls. ' .' ' ''
are much more impohant thai I maker Wttirtp6ot Corp. con5id-,
I They agreed instead to keep
simply predicting the future." "ered scenarioi based on dSyoln.
the plart open unless orders fell
Companies have long planned crease-or-decrease'in.demand" to
a predetermined "trigger
for changing circumstances. Now, Chief Executive Jeff Fettig
point,o he says. The trigger was
rVhat's new-and a switch from has broadened that to consider
never trippe4 so the plant
the distant calendars and rigid swings.as.wideas"l5%:' stayed
ope& and the company
forecasts of the past-is the 'The rate bf drange and width was
ready when orders recov-
heavy dose of opportunism. Of- of volatility is much wider and
ered rapidly tast fall.
fice Depot stuck with its three- faster than what we would have
A big U.S. services-sector
year planning process after the assumed coming into this," Mr.
business hurt by. inadequate
recession hit, largely to make Fettig says. The company real-
strategic planning has decided to
sure employees had a common ized it could no longer count on .
create a situation room modeled
plan to rally aroun4 Mr. Odland 'a reasonable set of assump-
after the oires recently estab-
says. But the CEO decided tgJ-q- tions," he adds, "so we
modeled lished by an Asian electronics
viiw'the-bufuef eV6ri-froiith very significant changes in sce-
concern and a Scandinavian
,ratherthanquarterly'so th6"o:fr narios." , bank, accordilg to Mr.
Bryan.
fice,supply-".thain-could,-,react- J.C. Penney Co. put its long,
This McKinsey client wasn't pre-
faster--ts customersL,needs: term strategy on hold and called
pared last year when a financing
In one review session, man- in a substitute. In April 2007,
window suddenly opened, caus-
agers told Mr. Odland that nu- Chief Executive Myron E. 'Mike"
' inC it to pay more to raise bil-
merous cash-strapped consum- Ullman Itr had unveiled an ambi-
Iions of dollars than a faster-
ers no longer wanted to buy tious five-year plan as the Plalo,
moving company would have
pens or printer paper in big Texas-based retailer launched its'
had to, Mr. Bryan says.
packages.- The combany soon biggest expansion ever. But amid
McKinsey, along with several
ireated special displiys promot- tlr,e slowing economy in early
rivals, saw demand for i_ts strat-
ing singl! Sharpie pens and in- 2008, Mr. U[man realized tat t
egy consulting,services fall dw-
troduced five-ream packages of "there's no way you can have all
ing the dovmturn. "But noW we
paper, haif the sizebf the nor- gun barrels bazing]'So he de- are
seeing a huge pickup," Mr.
mal big bundle. Pleased by those vised a tentative "bridge" plan
Bryan says. 'tsusinesses are say-
I itums'- popularity, Mr. Odland that lasted through 2009. 'nVe
ing, 'It's time to thirk about go-
I vows to continue the monthly hit the pause button on a lot of
ing on offense again."' ./

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  • 1. Why Budgeting Kills Your Company HBSWK Pub. Date: Aug '1 1, 2003 Why doesn't the budget process work? Read what experts say about not only changing your budgeting process, but whether your company should dispense with budgets entirely. by Loren Gary The average billion-dollar company spends as many as 25,000 person-days per year putting together the budget. If this all paid off in shareholder return, that would be fine. But few organizations can make that claim. In fact, many firms now question the ROI of traditional budgeting altogether and are looking for alternatives that reduce time and better align spending with strategy. Look at your own company's budget process: Has it really helped you do a better job of belt tightening during the current slowdown? Many companies have reverted to more centralized command-and-control procedures to keep a tight rein on costs-but the dynamics of the budgeting proc3ss ofter rmder.rqine this effort. "In tough times like these, any signifrcant real cost growth feels imprudent and is hard to justify for most businesses," writes Mike Baxter, a partner in the consulting firm Marakon Associates (f{ew York City), in a recent company publication. "Business units have used their budgets as a bargaining chip, bidding high to get a larger slice of the pie while keeping their cards close to their chest. "The CEO has had no choice but to get them back into shape,
  • 2. though he lacks any clear line of sight for identifying and challenging the least valuable resources," Baxter continues. All too often, the CEO must opt for across-the-board cuts-even though he knows that this approach penalizes the high-performing units and props up the underperforming ones. The result is a decoupling of the company's resource allocation process from the highest-value strategic opporfunities. The answer, some experts say, is to dispense with budgets entirely-and The answer, some experts say, is to replace them with a system of rolling forecasts and key performance dispense with budgets entirely. indicators that shifts strategic decision making to customer-facing edges of the organization. Others advocate less sweeping but still significant changes: Housing the budgeting and strategic planning functions in one office, establishing top-down goals three to four years out, and requiring all business units to explore the budget implications of several strategic alternatives. The following discussion will help stimulate your thinking about how your own company's budgeting process can be transformed from an exasperating exercise in pork barreling and interdepartmental brinksmanship to a tool for achieving strategic alignment. How fi xed-p erfo rmanc e contracts ensure underperformanc e At its simplist, a company's budget process consists of each unit producing a sales forecast (assuming it's a profit center) and a capital needs forecists. "I've seen some annual budget processes that didn't take any time at all," says William J. Bruns Jr., Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School and
  • 3. a visiting professor at Northeastern University. After each unit's sales and capital needs forecasts are complete, "senior *unug.*.nt holds a three-day meeting to discuss them and then makes its decisions. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum, you have these 200-page budget books that get produced, requiring months of meetings." In some instances, the budget process consumes up to six months and20 percent of management's time. Most companies' approach to budgeting increases the chances that the process will be arduous, expensive, and frustrating; says Jeierny Hope, .o*ttroi with Robin Fraser of Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Freefrom h+r^. //hlacurlr hhc cdr r /f nnl c/nrinf ifern .ihf rn I ?i d:? 6) 2, Rr t:fin qn e e r r /i103 the Annual Performance Trap (Harvard Business School Press, 2003). The culprit is what he calls thefixed- performance contract "The targets for sales, costs, and key ratios that are spelled out in the budget become an implicit contract," he says. A recent Hackett survey found between 60 percent and 90 percent of the top 2,000 global companies have this sort of contract. "And there are usually hnancial incentives attached: Career prospects and bonuses ride on this contract-incentives for hitting the targets amount to as much as 97 percent of a U.S. manager's annual salary. "There's terrific pressure on everyone to make those targets; hence the distortion, misrepresentation, and gaming that can happen in even the most ethical companies," Hope
  • 4. continues. "If you're a manager trying to increase spending or get a eapital project approved, yo,tr put'itt.fuT'5Opercent mote than you need, knowing you''ll get argued down by senior management to what you originally wanted." At the same time, the fixed-performance contract fosters the fear in managers that if they don't spend what's 1eft over in their budgets at the end of the year, their funding for the next year will be reduced. Cost discipline thus takes a back seat to furf protection. The budget process may help establish a ceiling on costs, but the intemal politics of the fixed- performance contract ensure that there is also a cost floor-in other words, that the cost savings aren't as sizable as they might be. As long as budgeting, a vestige of the old command-and-control approlch to management, remains in place, the newer tools designed to decentralize strategic decision making wlti t^er'er bcnrevti their fulIpotential, Hope and Fraser argue. The solution is not better budgeting "but rather abandoning budgeting entirely and building an alternative management model," they write. Among the features of the approach they recommend, which is currently being used by organizations in a range of industries and countries, are the following: Goals based on longer-term external benchmarks instead of internally negotiated annual targets. Adopt benchmark goals based on "industry best-in-class performance measures or direct competitors," Hope and Fraser write; and give teams "an extended period of time to reach fl1srn"-two to three years. Atlanta-based eye-care company CIBA Vision found that the move to competitor and market performance benchmarks--chief among them sales growth, refum on sales, and economic value-added (EVA) growth-not only helped it shorten and simplify its
  • 5. budgeting process, it also reduced the amount of budget gaming. Evaluation and rewards based on relative-improvement contracts. Such contracts involve "a whole team ... setting and meeting a range of performance benchmarks over a period of time," write Hope and Fraser. "Performance is then evaluated by a peer review group (using relative measures) with the benefit of hindsight." At the Swedish bank Svenska Handelsbanken, the company's eleven regions compete like teams in a league, trying to beat one another's return on equity. Similarly, the 550 branches compete on two other key performance indicators: Cost to income and profit per employee. The relative standings are publicized throughout the company. The uncertainty of this relative- performance approach drives success. Each manager knows from the outset "what has to be done to improve his or her usual performance," Hope and Fraser write. But it is only in hindsight that they know how well they have performed relative to the other managers. This leads them to focus on "maximizing profits at all times rather than playing games with the numbers" to meet artificial annual targets. Continuous and inclusive action planning. A five-quarter rolling forecast that provides projections for each of the five subsequent quarters can help eliminate the distortion caused by having financial incentives to meet a fixed target for a single fiscal year. A typical rolling forecast may have only a few line items: Orders, sales projections, costs, profitability, cash flow, and capital investment. But this information is enough to enable managers to focus on long-term issues that are fundamental to the business's
  • 6. success-for example, why customers are leaving or what's wrong with a particular product. I've seen some annual budget processes that didn't take any time at all. - William J. Bruns Jr., HBS professor emeritus Resources that are made available as needed, instead of allocated in advance. Handelsbanken gives its branch managers the freedom to decide which products to sell and to set their own prices and discounts. (Branch managers h rrn. //hh swk. hbs. edu/tool s/ori nt i tem. i htm I ? id:3 623 &t:fi nance rU3t0. know that whatever decisions they make about prices and products, their costs must be about 40 percent of income,) Similarly, each branch manager gets to decide what resources the unit needs. To make its central services more responsive to market demands, Handelsbanken conducts an annual round of negotiations in which cost estimates and the services underpinning them are discussed by all involved. Regional and branch managers can challenge the prices and even choose to go with outside vendors. Since the early 1990s, branch managers have had the authority to determine staffing levels and set staff salaries. At first, senior managers predicted
  • 7. that it would lead to an increase in the number of workers. But the opposite has occurred; Hope cites this as ewidence that the further out toward the customer-facing nodes of an organization you push the profit responsibility, the more cost-conscious and innovative the employee behavior you get. Indeed, since Handelsbanken abandoned budgeting in the early 1970s, it has bested its Scandinavian rivals on return on equity, total shareholder return, cost-to-income ratio, and customer satisfaction. The budget as an agent of strategic alignment Other experts are not as eager for a complete overhaul. Harvard's Bruns suggests keeping budgets but restructuring compensation programs so that managers no longer have an incentive to favor short-term goals over the longer-term health of the company, By getting rid of the inflexible approach to short-term targets, you answer the problern that lies at the heart of Hope and Fraser's critique of budgeting. Although Marakon's Baxter also doesn't advocate the whoreral; -upl-cilr,c.rr of traditional budgeting, he does believe that changes must be made to reforge the link between a company's strategic planning and resource allocation. "Budgeting and performance are typically overseen by the finance department," he says, "whereas planning is coordinated by a strategy department. Often, the two processes aren't well integrated, resulting in strategies that are often dictated by the budget process instead of vice versa. When it comes time for senior management to review the units' investment proposals, their decisions are often blind to their impact on long-term value. "Resource allocation should be about putting funds behind the right high-value opportunities," Baxter continues. He recommends creating an all-in-one process in which the CEO
  • 8. takes the lead in setting the strategic planning goals for all units, reviewing altemative strategies with business units, and linking resources to delivery of the alternatives with the highest value and best performance characteristics. With this approach, you're more likely to get not only the level of performance you're seeking, but also the particular implementation path that you're after. Although you want to encourage bottom-up thinking about how best to achieve the desired performance, you also need to create some discipline. "Many business unit managers are overly optimistic about the long-run performance potential of their strategies, leading them to overinvest in the near term," says Baxter. Senior management can provide valuable top-down guidance here by using three- to five-year strategic plans to define the boundaries of these discussions and then making sure they're clearly communicated at the outset of the resource allocation process. Next, charge each business unit with developing several alternatives as a way of helping the corporate center understand the highest-value, highest near-term profit, and lor.vest-cost options that exist in each unit. This helps create a genuine dialogue between the corporate center and the units about the resource and perforrnance tradeoffs involved in choosing a particular alternative. When you're clear on your strategic goals and have a process that integrates strategic planning with resource allocation and performance management, budgeting can actually work, Baxter says. It becomep a mechanism for ensuring not onlythat funds flow first to the strongest opportunities, but also that those opportunities actually deliver on their promise. EEI Reprinted with permission from "Breaking the Budget Impasse,"
  • 9. Harvard Management Update, May 2003. See the latest issue of Harvard Management Update. Loren Gary can be reached at [email protected],edu L*+-. //1"1-c.rrL hhc er{r r /f nn'l c /nri nf i tem i hf-l ?i rl:? 61 7 Rr t:{t n en a c 11t3103 Annual Budgets: Companies Do Them All Wrong - WSJ.com Page 1 of3 ;i,..--i-,.:.::lr:::,li1::r'.i.1,1..i:Si:)rltr:iii,:,:r;l..ar:.ia,r,ir.- it,ai,:a.irlrt aa.jrria 1'J1-,!aa; !' ':-t Seg a srNpie ig.orint ir PDF fornai Order 3 r9of;fli oi irts adicie now ffiE SI{IJ, SIHEET JfiLIMfuI[. . ,,. .r1..,.. _ Companies Get Budgets All Wrong The annuol budgeting process leads ta bad decision-ntaking. It needs a total ouerhtul. 3r, i{[r*iii:T I A. Lif.i?{]l-lAi.l i Almost all companies prepare a budget, or annual operating plan. And almost all companies do it wrong. That shouldn't come as a surprise to managers, many of whom are
  • 10. highly critical about both the way budgets are prepared and the way they are subsequently used. The typical budget process, they say, mainly serves to distract managers from doing their jobs and to discourage them from taking risks. It undermines integrity, distorts information and leads to bad decision-making from mailroom to boardroom. They complain, for instance, about the endless meetings where managers crunch and discuss numbers that have long since gone out of date. They compiain that budget targets are almost universally defined in backrvard-looking financial terms and as a result don't reflect what successes*or failures*an organization may currentlybe having. At the same time, they say the budget processes too often serve as opportunities for self-aggrandizement-and enrichment-by . undeserving andunscrupulous managers. Those who earnthebest , ',"' performance ratings are often the most skilled in negotiating easily achievable budget targets for themselves. Even more damaging, many will manipulate numbers in their budget reports to inflate results and artificialiy achieve short-term targets. And others
  • 11. will e spend money wastefully so as not to see a reduction in next year'srF budget allocation. Can the problem be solved? To a large extent it can, if companies can only recognize that the annual budget process is too inflexible, too infrequent, and too easy to manipulate, to accomplish alt of the functions it is expected to-including strategic planning, resource allocation, evaluating performance and determining compensation. Organizations need to blow apart the traditional budgeting process, become more d5mamic and refocus on crucial management functions individually' Here's a blueprint for doing that. Journal Report lnsights from The Fxpcfts Read more at WSJ.comileadershipRepo!'t More in Leadershipl Corporate Finance How Conrpanies Can Raise Prices Withotlt Ai;enating CustsmelS. lPJhen CFS$ Think Toa Fast. C*n CFOs Alferd to lgnore Big Sata?
  • 12. nnndng tl* *lldbi+ : :r,r!1. I .' , t lrr .x n',i{ri,, ": : z' i. ilrrr# 4 [*Yir i'*;!* 9:ti.!!4 1. Start DYnamic Planning Stop using annual budgets for strategic planning. Many important business decisions should be based on a realistic business plan' But the traditional annual budget quickly becomes obsolete. Some planning assumptions in such budgets http://online.wsj .com/article/SB 1 00 0142412788732387390457857 1 8 10482331202.html 7t2412013 Annual Budgets: Companies Do Them All Wrong - WSJ.com Page 2 of 3 inevitably turn out to be lwong. Managers need to update their plans whenever something happens to change their business unit's prospects in a material way. For most organizations, updating plans annually, or even quarterly, is not frequent enough. When relevant factors sueh as interest rates, oil prices or competition change, business plans have to adapt immediately. Incal line managers are usually in the best position to know when their plans have become obsolete. Trust them. z. Allocate Money Where lt's Needed, Whenlt's Needed No business unit or department should have to wait until next year for more resolrrces when an unercpected and important need arises. That discourages managers from taking risks or otherwise deviating from the
  • 13. actions proposed when the budget was prepared. After all, managers who miss their budget targets could lose theirjobs. Additional budget allocations should be made whenever they are requested. Since it isn't feasible for an appropriations committee to meet constantly to review each request, senior executives should move to relax the financial constraints. They should trust managers to make good decisions, and use minimal oversight only over large commitments. If per{ormance and incentive systems are effective, managers will be highly motivated to make good decisions because they know they will be held accountable later. S. Don't Use Budgets to Euoluate Performance Budgets are notoriously poor evaluation standards. It makes little sense to judge performance based on target numbers and assumptions that become quicHy out of date. What's more, basing pay on budgets that the managers themselves help create encourages them to sandbag*that is, lower expectations*to give themselves a better chance of meeting their goals. The solution is simple Perforrnance evaluations must be kept separate from the planning processes. Managers should be judged based on how their organizations or business units per{ormed in the actual conditions faced in the given measurement period. Thus, compare performance with that of peer organizations facing the same, or similar, operating conditions. If no such peers exist, come up with a standard based on historical performance, adjusted for changes in economic conditions, size of market, interest rates, price ofoil and other key factors.
  • 14. 4. Deuise a Richer Set of Performance Metrics Compensation and other management committees shouldn't rely soiely on financial results, such as profits and returns, when measuring the performance of business units and nunagers. Such measures are backward- looking and aren't reliable indicators of performance in the short-run. Companies shor.rld supplement the financial measures with metrics specificto each organizational segment, some of which are leading indicators of coming financial performance. Depending on the company, these could include attaining significant new customers, successes in research and development, or improvements in production, customer satisfaction or employee morale. 5. Make Bonuses Incremental Managers often are tempted to manipulate their performance metrics because of the way they are compensated. At most companies, budgets define a level of performance below which no bonuses are paid, Many also set an upper threshold, above which no additional bonuses can be earned. Such thresholds eneourage managers who otherwise would be "out of the money" to manipulate their unit's results. If companies aligned bonuses in direct relation to measured performance, with no thresholds, there would be less temptation to manipulate results. *** These five steps will result in a more adaptive and innovative organization that responds quicHyto new opportunities and threats; managers who won't be motiyated to lie about their prospects or manipulate their numbers; and better decision making because of more up-tc.date and unbiased infonnation.
  • 15. Yes, the newprocesses maybe just as time-consuming as the old budgeting system was. But there will be a big difference: The time spent will no longer be largely wasted. http://online.wsj.com/arficle/S810001424127887323873904578 57181}482331202.h1m1 7/24/2013 maker of specialty vehicles, the tomers in fresh ways such as Dudng the lecession, as busi- recession triggered a massive through social-networking sites. ness forecasts based on seem- overhaul of strategic planning. Mr. Ullman says the bri{ge ingly plausible swings in sales Officials'used.to draft a,one- year"* plan succeeded, and he cites smacked up against reality, exec- _. strategic plan and a &reelyear- Penney's irnproved margins and utives discovered that strategic Jiaaacial plan-and then review lack of layoffs. Next month, he'll planning doesn't always work. each one every'quarter. Chief Ex- offer fellow directors his views Some busiless leaders came ecutive John Sztykiel says that about reviving his 2007 strategic away convinced that the new relatively inflexible method plan after he analyzes "whet}er priority was to be able to shift bears some of the blame for it is as relevant as it was three course on the fly. Office Depot Spartan's sharp drop in sales ,years ago." Inc., for example, began'updat- and gross profit during the fust Other 'executives have em-
  • 16. ing-.its- annual budget"'every* hine montJrs of 2009. braced "just-in.timetr-decision: rnonth, starting The Charlotte, Mich., manu- . making, a tactic that Lowell PRACIICE Other companies enough to shifting aeman4 tre sultants McKinsey & Co., thinks started to factor says. will spread dwing the.recovery. rDr,rategrc rlans Lose ravor Slump Sltowed Bqsses Value of Ftexibtlity, Quick Decisions Bv Joanrrr s. Lw'N ,l{h / oour., meetings. B "/ things," he explains, while AND DANa MArrrou ' | " I For Spartan Motors Inc., a speeding up efforts to woo cus- inore"-extreme -scenarios.;.into Last July, lvlr. Sztyhel inaugU- Prematwe decisions can create their thinking. A few even set'up rated a tree.yearstrategicalan.- excessive risks, he says, b,ut iop- l'situation rooms,". where staff- that*re.-and.his lieutenank up- portunity costs, are faritaiticr erS glued to cirmputer screens date.every-monti;ifhe Spartan when decisions are delayed for monitored developments affect- CEO has started to see a payoff. too long. McKinsey itself sogght ingsalesandfinances. In November, the company ,to capitalize on the recession-. Now, even.though the econ- agreed to buy Utilimaster Corp.; rattled environment with iti Ocr omy is slowly pickhg up, those a maker of delivery vals an{l tober 2008 opening of a Center fresh habits aren't fading. 'lltris , custom chass'rs, for $45
  • 17. millioh: for Managing Uncertainty downtqr4 has changed the way Mr. Sztykiel is sure the deal . headed by Mr, Bryan. we will- think about oi:r business wouldn't have crossed his radar : ill'ing decision'makfungclgsely* for manyyears to come," says in time if he had.stuck with' to'evolvingfacts'helpedamajor Steve Odlan4. Office oepoi's,'quarterlystrategyreviews. . U.S.produterof indus$-i4goiids chaiiman and chief'executive. Martin Reeves, a senior part-'. avoidswitching gears too sooni Walt Shill, hehd of the North' , ner at' Boston . Consufting l.., Batterqd by ijre downturn last American management consult- Group, believes more busiless ,spring, the MqKinsey client ing practice for Accenture Ltd., leaders will start to rely less-on .'(which Mr. Bryan wouldnit is even more blunt:.r'Stratery;as .static-dve:year- strategic:ptans.: name) considered do-sing a large we:4<nr!w'i!.js;'dead,4 he con- .and-more on roggh- 'Iadapti.re".. 'blant- Officials earefiilbf aslegSed tends. "Cogperate clients idb- strategie- sthatconsidei"rnqltiple.;,fte pluses and minuses of shgt- cided that increased'flexibility-;scenaios. Before the fecessi,or .:tinglit sdoner rather than later, and'acceleratbtl decisionmaking - and the housing crisis, appliance tlutr, Bryan recalls. ' .' ' '' are much more impohant thai I maker Wttirtp6ot Corp. con5id-, I They agreed instead to keep simply predicting the future." "ered scenarioi based on dSyoln. the plart open unless orders fell
  • 18. Companies have long planned crease-or-decrease'in.demand" to a predetermined "trigger for changing circumstances. Now, Chief Executive Jeff Fettig point,o he says. The trigger was rVhat's new-and a switch from has broadened that to consider never trippe4 so the plant the distant calendars and rigid swings.as.wideas"l5%:' stayed ope& and the company forecasts of the past-is the 'The rate bf drange and width was ready when orders recov- heavy dose of opportunism. Of- of volatility is much wider and ered rapidly tast fall. fice Depot stuck with its three- faster than what we would have A big U.S. services-sector year planning process after the assumed coming into this," Mr. business hurt by. inadequate recession hit, largely to make Fettig says. The company real- strategic planning has decided to sure employees had a common ized it could no longer count on . create a situation room modeled plan to rally aroun4 Mr. Odland 'a reasonable set of assump- after the oires recently estab- says. But the CEO decided tgJ-q- tions," he adds, "so we modeled lished by an Asian electronics viiw'the-bufuef eV6ri-froiith very significant changes in sce- concern and a Scandinavian ,ratherthanquarterly'so th6"o:fr narios." , bank, accordilg to Mr. Bryan. fice,supply-".thain-could,-,react- J.C. Penney Co. put its long, This McKinsey client wasn't pre- faster--ts customersL,needs: term strategy on hold and called pared last year when a financing In one review session, man- in a substitute. In April 2007, window suddenly opened, caus-
  • 19. agers told Mr. Odland that nu- Chief Executive Myron E. 'Mike" ' inC it to pay more to raise bil- merous cash-strapped consum- Ullman Itr had unveiled an ambi- Iions of dollars than a faster- ers no longer wanted to buy tious five-year plan as the Plalo, moving company would have pens or printer paper in big Texas-based retailer launched its' had to, Mr. Bryan says. packages.- The combany soon biggest expansion ever. But amid McKinsey, along with several ireated special displiys promot- tlr,e slowing economy in early rivals, saw demand for i_ts strat- ing singl! Sharpie pens and in- 2008, Mr. U[man realized tat t egy consulting,services fall dw- troduced five-ream packages of "there's no way you can have all ing the dovmturn. "But noW we paper, haif the sizebf the nor- gun barrels bazing]'So he de- are seeing a huge pickup," Mr. mal big bundle. Pleased by those vised a tentative "bridge" plan Bryan says. 'tsusinesses are say- I itums'- popularity, Mr. Odland that lasted through 2009. 'nVe ing, 'It's time to thirk about go- I vows to continue the monthly hit the pause button on a lot of ing on offense again."' ./