Adjusting Components of Management Control System for Strategic Change - Case: A Real Estate Service Provider in Finland

This research is about Management control system (MCS) and how components of MCS are adapted according to the organisational changes. This is a single case study of a real estate service providing limited company in Finland. Case Company wants to ensure the strategy execution by improving its MCS and measurement systems. The research is a constructive research of MCS in Case Company. I work together with Case Company representatives to understand and to describe the reasoning for current management control system and to understand how the new strategy implementation will affect MCS. Case Company has defined a new strategy for growth plans. Therefore, Case Company has in its interest to clarify MCS and to set corporate indicators with strategic goals. Case Company should translate the strategic objectives at every management level. Case company has set three strategic priorities and two of them are taken into consideration. These two strategic priorities are about exploiting the current service product range. Third is about acquiring companies with strategic fit, but this priority is left out of this research. This research is a qualitative research and Case Company specific material is mainly from interviews. First, Management Team Members (MTMs) are interviewed to understand how the intentions of the strategy implementation are. Second, Heads of Unit (HU) are interviewed to understand, how control is seen at lower management levels of Case Company and how effective control system is. Interviews are also from strategy perspective, to understand how successful the implemented strategy has been so far and how HUs have understood the strategy. In this research, components of the MCS have to be adapted to enable the strategy execution. To be successful in strategy implementation, based on the research, I suggest giving more attention for administrative, cybernetic and planning control systems in Case Company. These control systems lack accurate use for strategy execution. Then, cybernetic control systems should be given more emphasis on monthly financial reporting. Therefore, financial report template is to be used at every management level and given more emphasis on strategic objective manner. KPIs will be assigned both at corporate and at unit level.