Yes, it is, and we know. The purpose of Beyond Budgeting isn't necessarily to get rid of the budget. The purpose is to create more human and more adaptive organizations. This requires major changes in the organization's managament model. At the core of a traditional management model we find not just the budgeting process, but also the budgeting mindset. Hence the name, but if you have a better proposal, let us know!
This is a question we get all the time. The short and simple answer is 1) Build the case for change, 2) Separate the budget purposes target setting, forecasting and resource allocation into three separate processes 3) Improve each process, including organizing each one on an event-driven rhytm, reflecting your business and the purpose of each process.
The long answer: Read! My book, and other BB books and articles. My article "Agile transformation and the elephant in the room" might be a good place to start (see Blogs)
Help the Board members understand the many problems with traditional management. Run for instance a survey asking managers and others about their experiences. It will often be shocking reading. Stimulate their curiosity by pointing to all the organizations that alreday are one the journey. Your competitors might be among them! Invite me or my Beyond Budgeting colleagues for an inspirational talk.
Start by asking yourself what you mean with control. If many of your answers are about the need for controlling people and prediciting the future, consider if these are about real control, or only an illusion of control. If so, these are controls we should lose, because they are bad controls. Beyond Budgeting provides however several new and good controls, like for instance transparency.
As for cost control, it is not a coincidence that many implementers report lower costs after abolishing the traditional cost budget.
Check out this article.