Sarbanes-Oxley and Cost Cutting
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Sarbanes-Oxley Act is being promoted as a cost control device, despite the costs associated with Section 404 compliance. Admittedly the survey was sponsored by interested parties, Parson Consulting and APQC. The survey shows successful companies have internal-control practices and compliance programs. At the same time, they keep compliance costs down. Together Parson and APQC launched the Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative(SM) (OSBC). The benchmark helps financial executives to evaluate company internal controls. The research revealed a significant discrepancy in the compliance- management costs incurred by the top-and bottom-performing organizations. Most participating organizations cited the use of some type of compliance technology. The research suggests that organizations with a higher level of automated controls exhibit lower overall cost and greater efficiency. Five factors were identified as key enablers of success in the internal controls process. * Executive Support * Communication * Process Owner Accountability * Risk Assessment * Software Tools Parson Consulting is a financial-management consultancy and APQC an international non-profit research organization. For purposes of this research "top performing" organizations are defined as those with overall top quartile performance across five metrics related to the internal controls process in the areas of cost, efficiency, and cycle time. For more information about the measures used or access to the survey finding please refer to the above contacts at Parson Consulting and APQC.
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