How the adidas Group finance team is becoming a true ‘value driver’

This blog was written by Robin Stalker, CFO, adidas Group and member of the A4S CFO Leadership Network, for the A4S Summit 2016. 

The adidas Group’s mission is to be the world’s best sports company.  We understand that, through our strategy “Creating the New”, we can drive our brands’ desirability as a way to deliver our financial success. So, our business needs us, as finance professionals, to challenge and put things into perspective considering ALL elements together – financial, non-financial, social, environmental and people.

Our definition and understanding of performance must move beyond traditional financial metrics!

The adidas Finance Strategy does just that: holistic performance management beyond financials that will support the long-term sustainable success of our company.

This means we can think in more than just financial terms – even though they are and will continue to play a very important role. I want to challenge this one-dimensional approach, because it carries a risk that as a business we may underestimate and sometimes even miss on the crucial intangible factors and trends that are impacting our long term success. Why? Because they cannot be easily measured or calculated with our used and trusted methods, and in some cases are not assigned to anybody’s responsibility.

Clearly, just being reactive to these trends and factors is not good enough. We aspire to be proactive and anticipate the impact and potential consequences they may have on our business, rather than just adapting to them.

So Finance is taking on this responsibility and stepping up to further enhance our ambition of being a true ‘value driver’ and enabler of our Group strategy.  We are doing this by adopting a holistic view on our business environment – both internally, as well as externally.

At adidas we are changing the way we view our success and the way we measure it. To name a couple of examples: our cooperation with Parley for the Ocean changed the way we view our success and the new Brand KPI of Net Promoter Score have changed the way we measure it.

So as a Finance department we are able to measure our success beyond short term financial capital, for the benefit of our future success and in a sustainable way. I encourage my CFO colleagues around the world to join me and The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) on the quest to make this business as usual!

Robin Stalker, CFO, adidas Group and member of the A4S CFO Leadership Network