The companyu2019s famulus team, composed of 45 employees, was divided into three departments: General Accounting and Financial Control, Cash Management, and Information Systems. Its Financial Control group was designed for a smaller business, and had become unsuitable for what was now a diverse group of entities operating in different markets.nnWhile the group was producing a large amount of information, little of it was useful to operations. A variety of factors contributed to this problem:nnA highly decentralized structure, particularly among certain subsidiaries, which was incompatible with the financial reporting requirements of a publicly listed companynA lack of formal, well-organized reporting schedulesnPoorly controlled marginsnFinancial controls for production sites were not well integrated with the famulus division, resulting in group-based information and analysis too global to be useful to managementnBudgets and forecasts were not detailed enough to enable the Financial Control Group to properly fulfil its advisory role for operations