business effectiveness challenges

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Business Effectiveness Challenges

The primary Challenge today is that Business Leaders need to be worried about producing

and maintaining value in an extremely contested and ever changing global climate. They

must meet these and other business challenges while demonstrating true leadership by

focusing on:

Convergence with Technology

Businesses are desperately trying to incorporate technological changes. The winners will be

those companies who manage change to combine state-of-the-art technology with a clear

vision of the future in order to:

Create additional revenue while maintaining current profit margins.

Adopt improved Business Intelligence without getting lost in the data.

Create flexible computer infrastructure and improve security.

Look for trusted partnerships who value what you have built.

Facilitate innovation without additional risk.

Insuring a Sustainable Business

The juxtaposition of economic interests against social and environmental concerns -

Responsible Corporate Citizenry - has moved to the top of corporation's public agenda. The

company's Leaders focus on finding the correct balance among competing economic, social,

and environmental goals is paramount. Considerable demands of time and resources will be

required regarding:

Social responsibility design and deployment.

Assurance of non-financial information.

Issues concerning environmental

The corporate reputation.

Supply-chain management.

Closing New Business

Companies need access to the right information at the right time. Their strategies have got

to be flexible, aggressive and broad enough to prepare for the challenges that will confront

the company as they move down the path toward the reaching of agreement on their new

deals? Tax issues, legal risks, conflicts of interest, market fluctuations all need to be taken

into account with each decision. An Organization has a need to extract the maximum value

from their transactions in matters such as:

Accessing the capital markets.

Acquisitions, joint ventures, and alliances.

Privatizations and Public/Private Partnerships.

Accounting, reporting and risk issues.

Human Resource needs.

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Improving Business Performance

Today's Corporate Value is formed through relationships with partners, suppliers, customers,

regulators and stakeholders. Success depends on collaboration with the outside and no

longer just within your organization. You need to draw on building new skills in finance, risk,

people, operations and technology to make change work.

Focus must be on:

Ensure you are getting value from the right deals.

Realize the intended benefits of outsourcing.

Derive benefit from risk management and compliance activities.

Capitalize on the convergence of technologies.

Drive and manage growth.

Managing People

Where, how, and for whom, people work is transforming company structures and its HR

leaders are under more pressure than ever to demonstrate results from their workforce

practices and policies. Business leaders need to recognize the link between business

performance and the people within their organization understanding that people-related

issues need to be at the heart of the agenda. HR managers are being encouraged to

implement people strategies that support the organization's business objectives and increase

accountability and transparency for such things as:

Attracting, motivating, and retaining employees

HR benchmarking and measurement

Employee benefits and compensation programs including pensions

Executive compensation and HR governance

Global work force mobility and expatriate planning

Transaction-related human resource issues

HR function effectiveness and service delivery

Managing Risk

Businesses can adjust for risks through a variety of conventional mechanisms and strategies.

Risk management is now viewed as an integral component of how organizations are

governed and how they comply with the external rules of the sectors and territories they do

business in. With the appropriate framework, companies are better able to determine the

level of risk they can, or want to accept, as they seek to build shareholder value and:

Make risk based decisions from well developed risk-related planning processes.

Analyze the level of risk associated with strategies and objectives of the business.

Respond to regulations and conformance requirements and monitor outcomes.

Identify, assess, and manage the level of political risk inherent in a company's

activities.



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Reducing Costs

Developing a cost-reduction strategy that maximizes efficiency without compromising

growth potential is a proposition rife with pitfalls. You need to identify core areas where

efficiency can be improved, trim and consolidate non-core functions, and reinvest the

savings in critical business assets. Whatever route you take, you must precede with caution

concerning:

Cost and structure of capital and Taxes

Benefits and compensation programs

IT - effectiveness

Off-Shoring and Outsourcing

Reporting Performance

Regulations, new standards, and the continuing proliferation of guidance with the

regulations relating to ‘narrative’ reporting accompanying financial statements.

Organizations must also provide a fully transparent view of the company’s health and

prospects. Investors also want companies to report on a broad set of non-financial

measures, which, combined with financial reporting, might provide a better basis for judging

corporate performance. The focus must include at a minimum:

Compliance with regulations and laws

Dealing with regulators

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) requirements

Environmental, safety, and social responsibility issues

Sarbanes-Oxley

Transparency and increased disclosure

Transaction accounting and reporting

Understanding trends in corporate reporting

Responding to Change

Change is complex because of the interdependencies between the stakeholders, the

organization, its’ people and supporting technologies. Any change in one aspect is likely to

affect one or more of the others. The aspects of business change, such as changing

behaviors, gaining buy-in of the staff, managing transfers into and out of organizations and

providing training at the right time, are critical to achieving the desired outcomes facing the:

Need to develop people-driven and processes to guide the organization.

Success endangered by uncertainty regarding how to manage stakeholders impacted

by change.

Assistance in managing people development and ensuring that appropriate skills are

developed.

Need to position the organization's culture to ensure positive attitudes towards

change.

Lack of control and co-ordination of activities required to manage projects

successfully.

Lack of the tools and templates to support projects and achieve successful outcomes.



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Strengthening Corporate Governance Compliance

Companies often find it difficult to fully comprehend the total cost of compliance. Leaders

see the potential for costs to escalate without realizing the full benefit of such investment.

This has heightened the focus on transparency, as well as an increased need to provide

accurate and periodic reporting of issues, events and certifications that affects the need to:

Comply with Sarbanes-Oxley 404 requirements

Advise on Board and management performance and accountability

Embed governance into the organization

Reduce the incidents of failure

Identify and address complaints and breaches of legislation processes

Achieve greater value for compliance spend

Improve stakeholder and regulator relationships and communication

Managing Crisis

A crisis can trigger serious financial problems and downturns. Changing markets and

competitors, outmoded technology, strategic errors or regulatory investigations can all put

sound businesses at risk of underperformance, declining earnings, and liquidity and cash-

flow blockages. Left alone, the results of any of these crises can be extremely serious, and

sometimes often irreversible. It can also unleash a host of non-financial challenges such as:

lack of confidence and pressure from stakeholders, suppliers and customers; regulatory

scrutiny; demoralization of staff; and reputational damage.


business effectiveness challenges

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