Sarbanes-Oxley 404

With the advent of similar regulatory requirements in other countries – including JSOX in Japan, the Loi de Sécurité Financière in France and Bill 198 / CSA 52-313 in Canada – multinational organizations will experience even greater complexity in financial reporting compliance. As the regulatory environment continues to become more demanding across the globe and businesses grows in scale and complexity, organizations have a greater need to make financial compliance activities sustainable, repeatable and more costeffective. This compliance burden is not just limited to publicly held companies. According to The Gartner Group, a survey of almost 300 boards of directors of privately held companies found that 77 percent were considering adopting some forms of SOX governance, control or transparency.

Organizations are increasingly leveraging software and technology to automate critical compliance activities. Companies are implementing solutions that: integrates the design and assessment of internal controls, automates control testing, streamlines the remediation process and increases visibility and control over the entire compliance process. Organizations that have adopted technology solutions have been able to lower their SOX compliance costs, reduce their non-compliance risk and free-up personnel to focus on more value-added activities. AMR Research, a leading industry analyst firm, believes that such an approach can reduce the cost of SOX compliance by over 35%.