Beyond budgeting
Beyond budgeting replaces the fixed annual budget with adaptive rolling forecasts and relative performance targets, arguing that rigid annual plans are too inflexible and gaming-prone for fast-changing markets.
FrameworkBeyond Budgeting
See it move
Traditional budgeting fixes a target twelve months in advance, which invites weeks of negotiation, gaming of easy targets, and a plan that's outdated within months. Beyond budgeting replaces it with rolling forecasts updated every quarter and performance measured against relative benchmarks rather than a negotiated figure, but only works if decision authority genuinely decentralises.
Check yourself
A manufacturing firm scraps its annual budget and replaces it with quarterly rolling forecasts. Divisional performance is measured against industry-peer benchmarks rather than negotiated internal targets, explicitly to remove the incentive for managers to understate potential when setting their targets. Which management approach does this describe?