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8 Steps to Compliance Readiness
Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.
You are the head of IT for a medium-sized company that is growing faster than the maturity of the IT function you direct. Add to that your company’s desire to go public and you have a perfect storm brewing. You have heard about Sarbanes-Oxley, Corporate Governance and the like but they have been something you didn’t need to deal with—until now.
Where to begin? How do you assess your compliance level? Here are some steps you can take to kick-start your understanding of where you need to beef up the IT organization, policies and practices on your way to becoming SOX compliant.
Step 1: Get Knowledgeable
Understand what IT Governance, SOX (USA) and Turnbull (UK) compliance is all about. Fear of the unknown is far worse than the reality of the known. Remember, as one of my old professors always said, “Nothing is difficult; there is merely the unfamiliar.”
Understand what IT Governance, SOX (USA) and Turnbull (UK) compliance is all about. Fear of the unknown is far worse than the reality of the known. Remember, as one of my old professors always said, “Nothing is difficult; there is merely the unfamiliar.”
In a nutshell, IT governance is about exercising appropriate levels of control, security and disciplines over information, technology infrastructures and IT services. What makes it complex is the governing laws and wide array of emerging standards. These standards (CoBiT, ITIL, CMM, OPM3, etc.), while not specifically addressing the current law, are viewed as being compliant with its spirit. In general there are five areas of IT that are affected by SOX and Turnbull:
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Information Asset Safeguarding Management
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