financial report and registration document 2011 - Groupe SEB

2 Chairman’s
Corporate governance
report on internal control
THE LEGAL AND INSURANCE DEPARTMENT
The role of the Group Legal department is to ensure that the Group complies
with legal and regulatory requirements wherever it operates, to protect the
Group’s assets and businesses and to defend the interests of the Group,
its management and employees in carrying out their functions. The Legal
department is concerned with three main areas of internal control:
� it drafts and updates model contracts and their related procedures for
frequently recurring transactions (purchases of goods and services,
conditions of sale, advertising campaigns, damages claims, etc.);
� it makes recommendations to the Group Executive Committee on rules for
delegating authority, and on the circulation and protection of confi dential
information, and it applies and monitors these rules;
� it selects external legal advisers, monitors their services and performance,
and oversees invoicing follow-up in liaison with the Management Control
department.
The role of the Legal department in the area of insurance is to ensure that
there is adequate insurance cover of the risks to which the Group is exposed.
Groupe SEB insurance cover is managed on a worldwide consolidated basis.
Worldwide insurance cover is arranged in partnership with leading insurance
pools; additional specifi c policies can be subscribed to locally.
THE FINANCE, TREASURY AND TAX
DEPARTMENT
The role of this department is to ensure the security, transparency and
effi ciency of treasury and fi nancial transactions, and to ensure compliance
with regulations and tax obligations in all the countries where the Group
is based.
Its responsibilities in this area cover:
� fi nancial resource management, in consultation with the Executive Vicepresident,
Finance, to ensure the Group’s liquidity;
� cash fl ow management;
� fi nancial risk assessment and hedging (particularly in the areas of foreign
exchange and raw material prices);
� on-going relations with banks;
� financial management support for subsidiaries, and support for the
Group’s General Management, in fi nancial planning for new projects.
This department has a triple responsibility in the area of internal control:
� monitoring tax inspections carried out by taxation authorities in all the
Group’s entities;
� ensuring consistency in the tax procedures used by the Group’s entities
and in liaison with tax consultants, verifying the compliance of the Group’s
main activities with current legislation;
� selecting tax consultants and monitoring the services provided along with
their cost.
Amidst the volatile economic situation in 2011, the Credit Management
department enhanced its management of client risk at the international level,
namely by implementing a monthly reporting system on the breakdown
of client payment terms and client risk exposure according to level of
delegation.
THE GROUP ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT
This department is responsible for ensuring that the Group’s accounting
principles and standards are compliant with international commonlyaccepted
accounting standards. It closes the Group’s accounts, in
collaboration with the entities, in a timely manner. It makes sure that the
accounting done by the subsidiaries is reliable and in compliance with the
Group’s accounting principles. It provides the Group’s management and
outside partners with pertinent fi nancial information.
The Group Accounting department is in charge of the pooled corporate
services centres (CSP) for Accounting and Management Services. In 2011,
measures were taken to expand the scope of authority of the CSPs, including
the integration of the subsidiary Groupe SEB UK within the CSP for Western
Europe, the creation of a CSP for Central Europe, based in Warsaw, the
founding of a CSP for Supor’s cookware operations in China, in addition to
the CSP already in place for its small domestic appliance operations. The
implementation of these CSPs, which share common procedures and tools,
improves information quality and speed of access to information.
THE GROUP MANAGEMENT CONTROL
DEPARTMENT
The Group Executive Committee attaches great importance to the Group’s
planning procedures. These prepare the ground for the annual budget, which
makes it possible to defi ne the Group’s strategic priorities and draw up
operational plans.
The Management Control department is responsible for issuing appropriate
directives and guidelines to help those involved in drawing up the budget.
It coordinates budget planning and control, using a handbook of management
procedures and rules applicable to all entities, including Group budgeting,
forecasting and management reporting methods.
The management reporting system uses a consolidation management tool
for calculating the Group results.
Physical or fi nancial controls make it possible to verify balance sheet items
such as components of the working capital requirement and cash position.
These various aggregates are budgeted at the end of the year and monitored
monthly.
The Management Control department draws up a Group budget forecast
chart and distributes this, with an analysis of signifi cant variances and trends
based on the information provided by the Group’s entities in their monthly
business reports.
The department operates with accounting and management software that
allows effi cient operational and strategic monitoring.
38 GROUPE SEB Financial Report and Registration Document 2011