Throughout Borealis, a new financial and steering system was in place which abandons the traditional budget in favour of more purposeful tools such as key performance indicators, trend reporting and rolling financial forecasting.
-Borealis, 1996 annual report
Borealis, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, was formed by a 1994 merger between the petrochemical divisions of two Scandinavian oil companies, Statoil of Norway and Neste Oy of Finland. The company, whose name means "of northern origin," was a fully integrated producer of two polyolefins, polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), commonly used to produce plastics. Borealis had production facilities in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden. With a marketable capacity of 3,340 kilo-tons production per year, it was the largest producer of polyolefins in Europe and the fourth largest in the world.

Questions
1. Compare and contrast Borealis' old financial planning and control system with its new system.
2. Is Borealis' new system an improvement? If so, why do so few companies use systems that look like it?

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EXHIBIT 1 Marketable Capacity of 10 Largest Polyolefin Producers (kt/year) Polyolefin Production Producer Worldwide Dow/UCC Exxon/Mobil Montell (Shell and BASF) Borealis Equistar TotalFina/Elf BP Amoco Solvay Elenac DSM 7,762 6,392 4,442 3,340 3,131 2,774 2,698 2,010 1,930 1,895 Europe 2,580 1,125 1,490 3,340 N/A 1,755 1,541 815 1,930 1,895