Inspect What You Expect  

According to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 452 US, UK and Australian companies, nearly half of the respondents state that senior management do not value data quality.  Two thirds of respondents believe that data integrity strategy is the responsibility of IT. The other third said that senior managers, such as the CFO, CEO, managing director and corporate board are responsible. 

Monitoring  

Riding the wave of both Bill 198 certification and S404 attestation, a large aspect of corporate governance is data quality found in systems and processes that support managerial decision-making. And every good leader wants to know what their numbers are true.  The CEO and CFO also need audit reports  --  proof of exactly how their management team knows that the numbers are accurate. Someone must regularly monitor the IT systems and processes that filters into financial reports. 

Monitoring consists of several parts on-going monitoring through reporting. This applies to both operational reports, such as Accounts Receivables and Management Reports, such as Balanced Score Card.  Audits validate the controls for accuracy and responsiveness as well it is important to review the original assumptions. Again, this applies to internal and external parts of the organization.  And occurs at all levels, from the operational to the Board.

The cleverest lesson one can learn from Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” TV show is that so many teams ended up in the boardroom because the leader delegated a job, but didn't follow up to make sure it was done right. Following up to make sure that a task is completed correctly is responsibility of the leader.

Bearing in mind that backgrounds influence focus, consider the IT manager who comes from either infrastructure or development. We can look to Interac team member, George Galambos, who twenty years ago spoke about the convergence language of business process understanding and business process modeling, that is where the information technology is speaking the same language as the business does. 

Temi Grafstein is delighted to address the Business Intelligence Community on data integrity: merging internal data with external discovery, at the Hilton New York City on September 28^th 2005. This talk will be of special interest to M&A leaders. 

http://betawatch.com/address/05sep28businessintelligence.pdf

Established in 1999, ßetaWatch Inc., home of digital due diligence(tm) is an independent technology audit corporation with no hidden agenda.  

Team BetaWatch International solves management of internal controls, provides effective and efficient compliance with applicable laws and regulations. BetaWatch has expert knowledge regarding with the International Organization for Standardization's document ISO 9126, a worldwide standard for software-product evaluation and quality, and are experts in COSO, SEC-mandated evaluation criteria.  

Using COSO methodology, Bill 198 certification is systematically expedited rapidly and correctly. BetaWatch provides an estimate. 

Identifying critical business process dependencies on databases and staff BetaWatch  documents, evaluates, and tests controls, handing off control monitoring to operational staff. 

With Team BetaWatch, board of directors, audit, and disclosure committees address today's higher standards of governance, identify and act upon appropriate accountability measures.