Taking control
As 1998 drew to a close, some 100 Rabobankers gathered in a Dutch forest
retreat in early December for a two-day international controllers' meeting. For
many participants, a large number of whom have recently joined the bank, it
provided the first opportunity to meet with other colleagues within the
network.The meeting also served to introducé Alison Straszewski, who has
replaced Bert Bruggink as Rl controller. But above all, the sessions underlined
the heightened profile of control Rl within the organization as a whole.
Global context
Detailing data
Taking roles
Upgrading capabilities
Teamwork
What sNewS Issue 12* December 1998 I 5
tansion into investment
ing (IB) and corporate
/^\ur expan
banking
inance has brought all the expected
challenges associated with that
inherently more complex line of
business,' says Straszewski. 'At the santé
time, the general volatility in global
financial markets, our preparations for
the euro and the millennium, and an
increasingly demanding regulatory
climate are all multiplying the pressures
we face. This meeting provided an
important opportunity for members of
control Rl to get to know each other as
a team, to jointly debate and solve
issues, and to survey the landscape
ahead. Our current urgent priority is the
year-end process for 1998 and we have
an enormous amount of work ahead of
us after that. We were able to prepare
for the more proactive role - forecasting
^fcjevelopments and helping managers
^^hroughout the organization plan their
business trajectories in greater detail.'
The starting point for any discussion of
the business, and control's role within it,
is the global economie context in which
we work. One participant, economist
Jacques Sijben, told delegates that
although the more extreme risks of
contagion associated with the original
July 1997 Asian crisis seem to have been
contained, the outlook is almost
certainty one of weakening world
growth, and indeed of negative growth
in many important markets. Interest
rates are declining. A key issue on the
European stage, given the recent leftish
political swing, is how unemployment
be solved; the answer is pregnant
with implications for the European
central bank, the strength of the new
European currency, and the level of EU
inflation and interest rates as a whole.
Alison Straszewski heightening control's profile
Both Bert Bruggink, who is departing as
Rl controller to assume the same role for
the entire Rabobank group, and Alison
Straszewski, who arrived at Rl after more
than 11 years in senior controlling roles
in UK, American and German banks,
opened the first day of the meeting by
stressing the growing importance of the
finance and control unit in our continuing
banking operations. Despite the hybrid
matrix structure that has prevailed in
recent years, there is a pressing need for a
more detailed, more timely, and more
direct reporting line to head office.
The trend is to move from aggregate to
more detailed data on cost and income
developments for use in projections that
can help managers make crucial decisions
on strategy. 'Offices are flooded with
requests for data from many different
parts of the organization. We envisage a
more coherent system with clear
timetables and unified specifications,
whereby all of this information can be
generated according to a consistent
scheme, directed to control, and further
disseminated, as necessary, throughout
the organization,' Straszewski says.
Willem van Duyn and Henk Leliveld
discussed the segregation of duties
between administrative organization,
control and audit, stressing controls'
need to take an overarching role in light
of its responsibility for RI's ultimate
P&L and balance sheet. Moreover, if
audit instructs an office to clean up a
reconciliation, it is up to control to
monitor that offices' performance. Bill
Cuthbert of IB stressed the importance
of maintaining strict discipline in such
areas as the production of a daily P&L
and indeed 'all the crucial information
required to control and measure the
performance of IB activities,' and spoke
of the need for a strong 'partnership'
between IB and control Rl.
Jim Peers, head of finance in the New
York office, provided an illustrative case
study of the efforts to upgrade the
capabilities of bis office, including the
hiring of new staff and the implemen-
tation of a new general ledger system
known as Peoplesoft. He spoke of the
need for control to 'reinvent itself' to
compete in (and meet the challenges
associated with) our new businesses.
Deborah Hutchinson and Gijs van der
Schrieck stressed the crucial importance
of more accurate data in the battle to
control costs; such data can also be used
to reduce our overall solvency, Jan Bos
and Eugen Buck revealed. Meanwhile,
for the benefit of the many new
Rabobankers attending the conference,
global F&A business manager Peter
Greenberg took the opportunity to
stress that, notwithstanding our thrust
into IB, our cooperative agribusiness
roots are still in full flourish, and he
underlined the continuing central
importance of F&A to our strategie
global evolution.
The first days' program was capped
with a dinner in which participants were
divided into teams, each responsible for
cooking one course of the shared meal.
It was a perfect demonstration of the
fact that, as Straszewski remarks, 'We
are one team, and all of our figures
appear on the same Consolidated
statement at the end of the day.'
