The value-driving potential of budgeting in South African manufacturing companies

Abstract

Historically budgets have been seen as an indispensible control mechanism for businesses. Both the business and academic press continue to report on problems related to budgeting. This research report investigated whether or not local managers and finance practitioners believe that budgets add value to South African manufacturing companies A gap in previous research was that investigations were limited to finance practitioners. This study investigated the experiences and views of non-financial managers in addition to those of finance professionals. In order to understand the views of both sets of managers, Qualitative research, in the form of semi-structured expert interviews was undertaken. The findings reflect managers believe budget and planning processes add value, their reasons for what drives value in the process differs from the international literature on the subject. The processes and procedures followed locally align with global practices to a large extent. It was surprising to find that local managers do not report the same levels of problems experienced with budgets as their international counterparts. Participative budgetary practices were found to be a problem, leading to problems with budgetary alignment, efficiency and buy-in. The most surprising finding was that non-financial managers are positive about budgeting and planning processes. The key finding being that the process is used to gain information that drives their understanding of their business and this enables them to more meaningfully review and update their strategies.