BUDGETING.

• Position: Review

Beyond Budgeting

Hope, Jeremy and Fraser, Robin

CAM-I Beyond Budgeting Round Table, May 2001

The Beyond Budgeting Round Table (BBRT) is a private-sector movement that questions the need for budgets in the private sector. The BBRT contends that budgets are a tool suitable to the industrial age and do not fit in the current information age. The new economy is characterized by discontinuous change, unpredictable competition, and fickle customers, thus limiting the value of long-range planning. To respond to these changes, a new management model is necessary. This new model must empower the organization's most valuable resource-employees--to use their knowledge and intuition to satisfy customers profitably. But BBRT believes that the traditional annual planning and budgeting process acts a barrier to change. There have been many efforts in the private sector to mitigate the limitations of budgeting, such as zero-base...