Beyond budgeting at Nors
: how the group dealt with business volatility

  • Gustavo Maria Gama Correia Soares Borges (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Beyond Budgeting is presented by the BBRT (2016) as an adaptive management model that will enable organizations to compete in today’s dynamic and volatile environment. Hope and Fraser (2003a) and the BBRT (2016) argue that by abandoning the traditional budget and implementing the 12 Beyond Budgeting principles, organizations will be able to achieve an adaptive and decentralized management process, which should improve their ability to compete in today’s turbulent environment. The purpose of this study is to explore if the Beyond Budgeting model is able to contribute to the adaptation to volatile environments, as suggested by Hope and Fraser (2003a) and the BBRT (2016), by conducting a case study on a company that recently implemented the beyond budgeting model and operates in volatile environments. This case study reveals that the company under study, Nors, through better planning and reporting routines set in motion by a customized approach to the Beyond Budgeting model, was able to deliver critical information to top-management about their business operations in volatile environments, namely Angola and Brazil, thus creating conditions for the company to adapt to significant market changes. As a result, the sharp market declines felt by Nors in both these geographies during the year of 2015 have been effectively answered by reducing both the structures and resources in these regions by around 60% and within only 9 months, which in turn allowed Nors to present in the year of 2016 the same positive results shown in 2014 but with a less significant volume of sales.
Date of Award12 Jul 2017
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorLuís Marques (Supervisor) & Miguel Alberto Reis Soares (Co-Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Traditional budget
  • Beyond budgeting
  • Volatility

Designation

  • Mestrado em Gestão

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