During the past two decades the implementation and adoption of information technology has rapidly increased.
As a consequence the way businesses operate has changed dramatically. For example, the amount of data has grown
exponentially. Companies are looking for ways to use this data to add value to their business. This has implications for the
manner in which (financial) governance needs to be organized. The main purpose of this study is to obtain insight in the
changing role of controllers in order to add value to the business by means of data analytics. To answer the research question
a literature study was performed to establish a theoretical foundation concerning data analytics and its potential use.
Second, nineteen interviews were conducted with controllers, data scientists and academics in the financial domain. Thirdly,
a focus group with experts was organized in which additional data were gathered. Based on the literature study and the
participants responses it is clear that the challenge of the data explosion consist of converting data into information,
knowledge and meaningful insights to support decision-making processes. Performing data analyses enables the controller
to support rational decision making to complement the intuitive decision making by (senior) management. In this way, the
controller has the opportunity to be in the lead of the information provision within an organization. However, controllers
need to have more advanced data science and statistic competences to be able to provide management with effective
analysis. Specifically, we found that an important skill regarding statistics is the visualization and communication of statistical
analysis. This is needed for controllers in order to grow in their role as business partner..
