International controlling - Hungary
Planning 2012 – Preparing for the unexpected: A conference for CEOs, CFOs, economic experts in Budapest
Planning 2012 conference will be held on 7th October 2011. The language of the conference is Hungarian. It is organized by IFUA Horváth & Partners and Concorde Alapkezelő.
Bad economic news come one after another. Business leaders can only guess what follows next. They can get a little peace of mind only if they make sure they did everything to fence the upcoming difficulties. To achieve this they should know what to prepare for – the financial analysts on the conference will help them with this. They have to know what their peers do – corporate leaders and industry experts will talk about this. For the same reason the organizers devote time for discussion as well.
Some of the conference topics:
- what can be the future of the eurozone?
- how can the changes effect corporations?
- what can CFOs do to achieve liquidity in the future onwards?
- what scenarios can be imagined?
- what can change in corporate strategy?
- how to lessen operational risks?
- what changed in everyday life?
(Controlling) Life is what you make it
Central planning has a long tradition in large Hungarian companies, but mainly in the finance and accounting sectors, knows Andreas Kovács, Head of the ICV working group Hungary 2. And: Controlling activity is mainly restricted to operative and mediumterm business planning, supplying data and reporting. But Mr. Kovács has good news: "Controllers however are showing interest in learning about and applying procedures, methods and tools". Read more about here:
The 20 years of controlling in Hungary
May of 1989: the European situation was quiet. Nobody had thought it was five months until "Mauerfall". 300 CEOs and CFOs were swarming in the conference room of Hotel Hilton settled in the Castle of Buda, waiting for the first Budapest Controlling Forum to begin. Each participant was dealing with two questions: 1) What is controlling exactly? 2) Can those who launch controlling be as successful as the companies in Western Europe? The event was opened by Prof. Miklós Dobak and Prof. Péter Horváth. Among the lecturers of the event there were lots of managers of great western firms like Daimler and Bosch, and some Hungarian leaders.
Hungary came by investment sources from the World Bank in the 80s on the understanding that it was willing and able to modernize its companies. Not the state got the supplies but the state-owned enterprises managed with big autonomy. The managers by the cover of World Bank's sources invited management consultants and western trainers (tutors). In this way got Prof. Péter Horváth's consulting firm to Hungary and supported the reorganization process of the state-owned enterprises.
The first controlling organizations were founded in 1987. The managers of those were trying to make contact with the German training centres. Many controllers got to Dr. Deyhle's "Controller Akademie" in Germany and to the "Horváth Controller-Kolleg" in Stuttgart. Also the Austrian "Hernstein Institute" and the German "REFA" provided training for many Hungarian professionals.
The first controlling consulting firm, the IFUA Horváth & Partners, was established in September of 1989. In 1992 the Organizational and Management Association's Controlling Section was established. In 1993 the Hungarian Controlling Association came into existence. Also since 1993 the Controlling Academy trains 60-80 controllers in every year. On behalf of the Hungarian Controlling Association's presidency, Mr. Ervin Nemesdy contacted the International Controlling Association (ICV, Internationaler Controller Verein) in 2006. By the support of Mr. Herwig Friedag we established two work groups with 60 members. During the seven group meetings in the last two years we processed topics like the controlling of Shared Service Centres or the assessment of planning and reporting support BI solutions.The 20th Controlling Forum of Budapest was held with hundreds of participants in May 2008. After watching the presentations of Mercedes Benz AG, Bosch, MOL and Hungaropharma etc. we could appoint that the controllers living in different parts of Europe speak the same professional language.
István Radó,
IFUA Horváth & Partners Kft., Budapest
Here you can download this article.