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Corporate Governance

"There is a serious amount of effort being placed into addressing corporate responsibility at the top of financial service organisations. Shareholders and regulators have made clear the need for organisations to tighten up their risk management, governance and compliance activities following a series of recent and high profile compliance failures and scandals (such as Enron) and the introduction of new rules and legislative changes to financial practice. Gradually senior executives have been put under pressure to integrate corporate governance into their core business processes to ensure that a comprehensive analysis of risk is undertaken and effective internal governance policies are implemented to protect their organisation. Leading organisations are not only embracing corporate governance to meet domestic and international legislation and statutory law, but are integrating it with their performance management activities to reap strategic benefit and competitive rewards."

"Currently at the top of the agenda for most boardrooms is The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SARBOX) and has the stated objective: ‘to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the security laws’. The rules set by SARBOX are very much in the public and media arena and firmly lay down the gauntlet for all financial organisations to meet stringent financial reporting and certification mandates by specific deadlines. Public and private companies alike must ensure their performance metrics are detailed, explained and auditable. European accounting standards are also being updated to reflect the same sort of controls as SARBOX and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is looking for far more detailed evidence from organisations through the reporting of sound operational governance."

"Yet, these legislative changes are more than just achieving adequate financial reporting or introducing a business intelligence tool to comply. Under the rules, financial service organisations must establish and maintain strong control mechanisms over financial management and demonstrate their ability to manage governance. Whilst most have a degree of processes and systems in place, many lack the integration of compliance procedures with their strategic decision making and monitoring. For example the use of budgeting and planning is often restricted to kick-starting strategy. Organisations must take the opportunity of incorporating planning and budgeting into their overall risk management, compliance and governance framework. If they do not, they will be unable to fully embed compliance policies and performance management into their day-to-day operations or ensure that clear ownership, accountability, and measurement is carried through every-day business tasks. This issue is compounded by the complexity of organisations’ trading networks making it difficult to assess and identify risks beyond their direct control. In addition, the impact of increased market volatility, shareholder pressure and economic uncertainty heightens the challenge, and the requirement, for organisations to effectively manage risk and corporate performance."

"Compliance is a measurement of responsibility and accountability. Business executives are expected to demonstrate and explain their contribution to income generation, wealth creation and other factors that are important to shareholders, regulators and the public. As such corporate governance and risk management requires systems, processes and resources that enable organisations to answer key questions such as: what activities deliver the most shareholder value? What areas are contributing to income generation? What impact do these figures have on the organisation? What are the real critical success factors? How do we identify and address political, economical, social and financial risks etc? This involves creating an environment capable of embracing corporate governance, responsibility and performance management and deploying applications such as benefits and portfolio management, forecasting and budgeting, project and program management and resource management to allow informed strategic management."

"Without the necessary systems and processes in place organisations consume an increasing amount of resources and time in achieving consistent governance standards across their operations. Consequently it is not surprising that many still believe the challenge is to balance the requirement to comply with the ability and cost to deliver. Conversely, successful organisations have found that integrating value and compliance frameworks with strategic planning, operational management and risk management leads to dramatically improved corporate performance and shareholder value. They understand that investors are willing to pay more for the shares of well-governed organisations. They also acknowledge that in an effective corporate governance framework, risk management and compliance is a key part of the overall business goals and the whole organisation is committed to the spirit of corporate responsibility. In this environment operational policies are derived from the organisations mission, strategies, values and critical success factors; the measurement of performance and determination of value is embedded into the organisation’s core operating procedures; and employees understand what their roles and responsibilities are when it comes to risk management, due diligence and compliance. This can only be achieved by creating an environment that supports an integrated approach to corporate governance, social responsibility and corporate performance - realised through the use of structured and auditable projects, programs, resources, business processes and technology."

"We chose Hydra as the solution to take to our customers because we believe corporate governance, risk management and corporate performance requires a framework for real-time analysis, planning, implementation and monitoring. In our view Hydra is the only product in the market that enables organisations to truly meet these challenges and quickly and intuitively implement project governance practices and alignment. Hydra is an enterprise-management system that allows organisations to translate corporate strategy into project deliverables and manage the risks and benefits of strategic decisions. A major element of governance is the ability for an organisation to show that it has made investment decisions in change projects in a sensible and auditable manner. In comparison so many organisations have made, and continue to make, these decisions on political and emotional grounds. Typically you find that very flimsy models are used. Hydra, based on best practice modelling, provides support for a rigorous and auditable project selection processes."

"Through its unique design, Hydra enables organisations to: deliver strategy by understanding how programs align with the organisations objectives; define action plans, with objectives, milestones, timescales, budget and interdependencies; simplify and accelerate decision cycles by gaining full visibility of all project and operational work across the organisation; understand, track and monitor the effect of introducing, canceling or delaying projects; explore the complex relationships between programs, projects, benefits and risks; and prioritise and manage resources and track progress, actual costs and performance measures. In other words, Hydra ensures our customers can implement governance and risk management throughout the full lifecycle of their corporate projects and programs. They are able to demonstrate to shareholders the full value of their investments and strategic decisions."

About 2Delta

2Delta provides software and services to deliver strategic programme and project insight to Project Managers in the financial services industry. The combination of best practice Program Management expertise of our consultants and Hydra, the industry leading Program and benefits management software from the PMG Ltd, enables our clients to derive best value from their limited resources. It is the experience and understanding of the financial services sector and best practice that 2Delta consultants bring to a project that creates a solution from a product.

About Hydra Management Ltd

The Hydra Management Ltd is a privately owned software company that exclusively focuses its resources on developing, selling and supporting Project Portfolio Management and Collaborative Management solutions through its consultancy and software divisions. The solution, Hydra, is designed specifically to address today's complex web of business issues: managing people, knowledge, projects, programs and performance, across locations, in unity. Hydra is suitable for companies of all sizes, from complex mid-sized organisations to large multinational organisations. Hydra Management supports over 50,000 users with customers including, Fortis Bank, Panasonic, Barclays Bank, Barco, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Chelsea Building Society, The Skipton Building Society, Experian and many more. For more information, visit www.hydra-management.com.