DFL – Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH, the governing body of German professional football, was facing challenges in controlling its financial data. Rapid growth and a lack of standardized processes necessitated a new approach. With the Board Enterprise Planning platform, DFL established a single source of truth, automated processes, and improved data accessibility. This enabled faster decision-making, enhanced collaboration, and a more strategic role for the controlling department.
Jörg Degenhart
Member Of The Executive Board, Director Of Finance, IT & Organization at DFLBoard delivers consistent, reliable data and provides a single point of truth – critical for accurate reporting and planning, and for leading value-added discussions.
Jörg Degenhart
Member Of The Executive Board, Director Of Finance, IT & Organization at DFLThe DFL is the governing body of the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, an association comprising of and responsible for 36 professional soccer clubs in Germany. Following a period of rapid growth, the need for a robust financial control framework became clear. The absence of standardized processes and an over-reliance on manual data collection ultimately hindered efficient decision-making and left the controlling department facing too many ad-hoc requests and limited data accessibility.
The challenge: Introducing professional structures and processes
As a young company that had to cope with considerable financial volume from start, the controlling department came under intense pressure. There was only a rudimentary controlling and documentation approach in place, guided by a simple accounting system lacking any ability to digitally review documents. Reports were created in Excel and Word, leading to high levels of inconsistency and issues with accurate reporting. Jörg Degenhart, Member of the Executive Board, Director of Finance, IT & Organization at DFL, remembers from his early days at the DFL:
“It was a real challenge to create an overall picture. We had to deal with uncertainties and discrepancies when analyzing data. Decisions to be made were becoming increasingly complex. Since the operational employees had limited access to the financial information, many ad-hoc queries were sent to the controlling department, increasing time pressure and keeping members away from real value-driving tasks. In this respect, in addition to the expansion of the workforce, investments also had to be made in technical solutions in order to be able to meet future requirements.”
Solution: Enterprise-level solutions that adapt and scale to business need
DFL was looking for a comprehensive platform to streamline financial processes, create a single source of truth, and enhance data accessibility. Corinna Schmidt, Head of Controlling at DFL, explains:
“With the growing number of issues and increasing complexity, we decided to stabilize our controlling structures to improve our ability to act. We had to decide how to best deal with ever-increasing volumes of data, how to control data retrieval, and how to connect budget managers to the system. We needed to define our financial processes and how best to implement them. It was crucial to have a clear vision.”
To integrate with the digital infrastructure, DFL needed a new platform that could present the complex structure in a user-friendly and understandable way. It had to act as a single point of truth and provide a reliable foundation for all data and analysis. The Board Enterprise Planning platform was chosen to meet these requirements. Corinna notes:
“Board impressed us with its flexibility and adaptability. It allows us to digitally map complex processes and remain responsive to external shocks and changing requirements.”
The platform was initially implemented for reporting and planning, integrating data from ERP and CRM systems. Board serves as a central repository for financial data, enabling self-service access for authorized users, while also providing critical business intelligence (BI) functions for analysis. On Board, Corinna Schmidt comments:
“It is our single point of truth. If it’s not in Board, it doesn’t exist. You must get stakeholders on board to get buy-in. We now have around 100 users from finance, the specialist departments, and our subsidiaries in different roles and with different permissions on the platform who abide to this mantra and maintain Board accordingly.”
Corinna Schmidt
Head of Controlling at DFLBoard impressed us with its flexibility and adaptability. It allows us to digitally map complex processes and remain responsive to external shocks and changing requirements.
Corinna Schmidt
Head of Controlling at DFLReporting
DFL initially set Board up to provide the various controlling stakeholders such as committees, management, budget managers, and finance with the necessary information compiled through standard and ad hoc reporting. In many cases, this was as simple as sending a link from Board. The plan helped cultivate high levels of stakeholder acceptance and made self-service BI easier to retrieve and compile.
The further goal of reporting is to achieve better coordination between business partners and budget managers, relieving controlling of routine tasks. Digital document entry is available to all users, and the Board platform makes documents and comments available to all authorized users. This enables real-time insights and an immediate entry into the approval workflow. Users can analyze and classify any discrepancies by appropriate comments.
Planning
DFL uses Board for multi-year planning and forecasting with a more fluid approach to updating plans whenever required. Board combines the actual, forecast, and plan values and provides a clear comparison of different data statuses (e.g. cases, years, and plan versions) as well as a history of comments. The system also allows controllers and users to drill down to the various financial dimensions (e.g., area, cost center, project, cost object and P&L line). Corinna Schmidt adds:
“As access to data is device-independent and users can access it from a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, we can take advantage by directly having the latest data during meetings and the ability to update it in real time. This allows us to work top-down and bottom-up, and ultimately work toward a coordinated plan.”
The Board solution has been continuously improved and extended since the project’s initiation, with no end in sight for further enhancements. Corinna Schmidt concludes:
“We are constantly asking ourselves how we can make things even simpler. How can we optimize work processes and further reduce administrative tasks? How can we best adapt the data landscape? How can we better integrate external processes? It gives us focus to further increase the efficiency of controlling using Board and tailor solutions to our needs without restricting flexibility.”
Summary: From data managers to strategic consultants
DFL’s successful implementation of Board transformed the controlling function from a data collector to a strategic advisor. The platform’s ability to provide reliable, accessible data empowered the controlling department to support informed decision-making and drive business growth. Jörg Degenhart, Executive Vice President, Head of Finance, IT & Organization at DFL, notes:
“We quickly achieved consistent and reliable data in Board – establishing the platform as our single point of truth. This is a key factor in enabling us to have substantive discussions with partners instead of debating data accuracy. We can now make faster, more targeted decisions.”
Corinna Schmidt adds:
“We’ve also optimized processes through a high degree of digitalization. Stakeholders are supported with digital committee reports and are provided with relevant dashboards and graphics – making important information quickly and easily attainable. The most important thing, however, is how we can shape the controller role to add value and contribute to the success of the DFL. Controlling is not a concierge who delivers data and analyses on demand but an active consultant to our business partners.”
