Meeting Governance, Risk & Compliance management requirements, by supporting regulatory, legislative and best practice demands.
Achieving continuous business improvement through consistency, efficiency and accountability.

Meeting legislative demands for better governance
The arrival of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has put the spotlight on corporate governance. Learning from the failures of high-profile companies to keep their houses in order, the US government is placing stringent requirements on any US listed company to ensure the highest levels of transparency in their activities. Other regions, including the UK and the rest of Europe, are set to follow with their own regulations on corporate governance.

The Sarbanes-Oxley challenge The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (US Public Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002) is about improving transparency and accountability in business processes and accounting. From the boardroom to the server room, many companies are struggling to define what is necessary to comply, and then implement effective solutions.

Senior management challenges

• Failure to comply with corporate governance rules has severe penalties for senior company officials, CF0s and CEOs in particular, leading even to prison sentences.
Senior managers must ensure that processes across the company, from financials through ERP to supply chain systems, provide the levels of accountability demanded in law, and to a strict deadline.
• To many, the requirement for compliance signifies more complexity without an obvious return to the company.

Functional management challenges

• The effort to ensure compliance across the enterprise holds serious cost implications.
• Recording, auditing and monitoring activities are resource-hungry tasks, and managers will either have to take on more staff without obvious benefit, or see productivity reduced as current staff work to maintain systems effectively.

User challenges

• Users will be required to learn and practice a new way of working.
• Even if they are used to record-keeping in some form, new systems will have to be introduced and adhered to that could be time-consuming and complex if not addressed effectively.
• Users who find a system difficult will often find a work-around, defeating the object of the exercise and introducing new potential for failing the Sarbanes-Oxley test.

IT challenges

• Often forgotten in the effort to achieve continuing compliance. The IT systems that underpin business activities and any changes will have to be reflected in applications and the way they inter-operate.
• More importantly, IT actually holds the key to smoothing the way to corporate governance compliance, through the Achiever Plus Sarbanes-Oxley Solution.

The need for change
For organizations to meet the compliance challenge, systems are needed which deliver transparency across the enterprise, meeting Sarbanes-Oxley requirements but without burdening the organization with a heavy load of administration and extra cost. Many companies are faced with the real and immediate challenges of meeting these requirements and non-compliance could have critical impact on individuals as well as the organizations themselves. Where financial irregularities occur fines and even prison sentences are a possibility for those held responsible.

The Achiever Plus Sarbanes-Oxley Solution provides an enterprise-wide environment with the tools to help define corporate governance policies and establish the controls necessary to comply with specific elements of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, such as Section 404, through automated workflow and secure electronic sign-off processes.

Achiever Plus puts management back in control. It enables enterprises to demonstrate compliance to Sarbanes-Oxley without a massive increase in costs or complexity. It ensures that managers can efficiently allocate resources to address problems, and that individuals are accountable for carrying out these actions.

Achiever Plus also provides the means to keep internal controls up-to-date. For the user Achiever Plus is easy to learn and use, and far less time-consuming to use than a manual system. For the IT department, Achiever Plus is fast to implement and easy to integrate.

Your total solution
Achiever Plus is a flexible, modular solution to help you to meet compliance requirements across the enterprise. Each module addresses key compliance issues.

Module	Supporting Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
Document Management	Managing the creation, review, approval and distribution of documents such as policies, procedures, process maps and reports Establishing internal controls and reports Documenting the management system Process mapping using Visio flow charts Preventing unintended use of incorrect documents Automated document protection and retention rules Enterprise-wide involvement in the change process
Audit and Corrective Action Management	Creating the definition of an audit schedule Managing resulting actions, including verification of actions taken Helping assess effectiveness of internal controls Preparing and maintaining audit checklists for procedures, processes, and departments Creating audit profiles for any area or process, detailing the frequency and responsibilities of the audit Creating and progressing audit reports, including electronic sign-off by the Auditor and Auditee Creating and managing non-conformances and corrective actions associated with audits
Issue Management	Documenting of non-conformities Taking appropriate remedial and corrective actions Reviewing the corrective action taken
Meetings Management	Documenting management reviews and other related meetings Managing resulting actions Formal sign-off of meetings where required Achieving transparency of management meetings and resulting actions
Competence and Training Records Management	Determining necessary competence for personnel Maintaining appropriate records of education, training, skills and experience, including the acknowledgement of training associated with management system updates

Benefits of Achiever Plus
The Achiever Plus Sarbanes-Oxley Solution is a modular and flexible management system designed specifically to address the needs of businesses aiming for corporate governance compliance and business improvement. Achiever Plus helps s achieve consistency in the management of information, through the more efficient use of resources and application of systems, and the opportunity to introduce accountability, to ensure that any issues that arise are resolved and do not reoccur.

Achiever Plus:

• Delivers consistency, efficiency and accountability
• Reduces administration through the use of automation
• Demonstrably satisfies legal requirements for due diligence
• Enables transparency across business data and processes
• Provides advanced controls for managers
• Has the flexibility to track requirements and changes in the business and evolve with them
• Can be implemented in just weeks, at low cost and low risk