Module 4:
Controls & KPI’s

The most common reason a new process fails is that it feels like more work. VJ, who led Shell's tax transformation, is emphatic about this: "We have to change their ways of working so it becomes natural that they follow a controlled process, rather than something added as an additional step. Then they will not do it." If the control sits on top of an already-full day, it gets skipped.

Diana Hansen, Sr. Director Global Tax at Trident Seafood, lived this in the first weeks of her rollout. It took what she calls "a little bit of managerial courage" to keep reminding people to close the loop, and it took trimming every unnecessary step, so the system helped rather than burdened. The goal is simple: make the right way the path of least resistance.

There's a trap on the other side, too: over-engineering the project. "They start simple," VJ says, "but they end up designing a huge [project] that nobody can follow." A project that lives only on paper is worse than useless, because it creates false confidence. "It exists just on paper," he warns, "and the real challenge comes when you get an audit notice a year or two later."

The fix is light but firm governance. Jesús Ricart, Head of Indirect Tax at Al Tayer, builds it into the way of working: "This process has to be properly identified in our standard operating procedures, agreed with the people involved, even outside the tax department, and then you do a follow-up." Accountability must be explicit. As Aaron Meneghin at Valentino puts it, once responsibility is written down, "now it's black on white." Everyone knows who owns what, and by when.

How you roll out matters as much as what you roll out. VJ's teams deliberately mixed material and lower-risk entities from the start, rather than saving the hard cases for last. They also planned for time: a full tax cycle runs twelve to eighteen months, so you can't judge success in a week. The mindset is "fail fast, learn fast, and adopt," not get it perfect on day one.

Brigitte Baumgartner of The Tax Graph adds the psychology: start with a low-hanging fruit and prove it works with a small pilot. "Then people get excited, it's working, and quickly you can scale."

Durability is not a one-time setting. "Change is not a project, it is a continuous journey," as the research behind our Q2 course put it. The moment you think you're done, the environment shifts again. Diana sustains momentum by regularly checking in and reminding people, plainly, that "this isn't going away."

Two things make that last. First, measurement: track KPIs that tell the truth, and watch for what VJ calls the "watermelon effect": green on the surface, red underneath. Second, ownership. The single most important role for keeping change alive is a dedicated process owner. Hand it to a compliance lead as a side task, VJ warns, and they'll get to it "after my tax return," which means never. Someone has to own the process itself.

There's also a simpler, more human mechanic that decides whether change lasts: habit. Brigitte Baumgartner sees adoption fail not because people object, but because they're too busy to build the habit. Her prescription is small and concrete: ten minutes a day, every day, for about three weeks, bolted onto something you already do, like checking your email. Leaders go first. "You cannot lead a team without starting with the example," she says, so the CFO logs in and looks at the dashboards too. A short weekly check-in helps, and the goal is to "turn yourself and your team into the biggest fan of that solution." Her warning is one everyone recognises: a tool you never build a habit around becomes the exercise bike you end up hanging your clothes on.

• Build the new way into the job so the right way is the easy way.
• Keep the design simple, clearly owned, and rolled out small to learn fast.
• Sustain it as a daily habit that leaders model themselves.