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Implementing the Next Wave of Financial Regulation
In spite of some 20 Directives and Acts affecting UK financial institutions over the past decade, recent events mean that the industry is braced for more waves of regulation. The FSA’s new chairman, Lord Turner, has spoken publicly about regulation becoming more stringent: “We are not going to fall into the trap that we did in the past of trying to get a minor competitive advantage [in the UK] by making regulation a little lighter than elsewhere…”

With more waves of regulation likely to be as much a part of the future as the past, how should we approach their implementation?

Critical success factors for programme delivery - the simple, but effective, people techniques (*)
Why does a strong command of the theory not necessarily result in successful outcomes? Because the approach to delivery is as much about practical application as it is about formal methodologies. The tools and techniques for controlling delivery are important to understand and deploy, but without addressing the fundamental people issues a programme can never be truly effective and objectives will not be met.

Here's the newly updated list of do's, don'ts, and, most importantly, the things in between.

Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404
For such a far-reaching and important piece of legislation the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is remarkably light on practical guidance to its implementation. The bulk of the work in achieving compliance with the act is driven by Section 404 which looks at the internal controls. However Section 404 of SOX simply states that a requirement exists that "Annual reports filed with the SEC shall state the responsibility of management for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control structure and procedures for financial reporting", and "contain an assessment of the effectiveness of such controls".

Given the aggressive timelines and the lack of fully complete practical examples in implementation organisations are working from first principles in devising their SOX strategy and approach.

Have You Been To India Recently?
This is the question that everyone is asking when the conversation turns to reducing the cost of the company's back office operations.

General Electric's Jack Welch cites the 70:70:70 rule - 70% of your processes should be outsourced, 70% of those should be outsourced offshore, and 70% of your offshore outsourcing should be done in India.

GE was one of the first entrants into offshore outsourcing in India and now employs over 10,000 people serving GE and non-GE companies from multiple locations.