There is one big reason for doing it — cost containment. And there is no shortage of vendors hoping to help organizations automate GRC (governance, risk, compliance) through IT. Oracle, Agiliance, and Lumigent are three I have bumped into lately, but there are many more.

Gartner has a Magic Quadrant report on enterprise GRC that lists a dozen or more vendors. Forrester Research and AMR Research, too, cover the automated GRC market extensively. Various recent analyst reports are listed here.

Gartner divides these products between GRCM products (defined as the automation of the management, measurement, remediation, and reporting of controls and risks against objectives, and in accordance with rules, regulations, standards, and policies for the oversight and operation of risk management and compliance programs — a mouthful, for sure) and other GRC products for the automation and monitoring of controls. more

Just how much do companies actually pay in corporate income taxes? And how does your organization’s tax rate stack up?

According to a new study of the S&P 500 companies, the range of variation in tax burdens is huge, with businesses paying anything from close to zero to more than 390 percent. more

If you’re a financial exec charged with managing your firm’s FX exposure, you’ve had your work cut out for you lately. As if the drooping economy weren’t bad enough, the dollar has been – of all things – strengthening. While the U.S. economy is weak, it’s still not as bad (or at least not perceived to be as bad) as many others, says Wolfgang Koester, corporate currency strategist with Fireapps, an FX exposure management company. At the same time, currency volatility has nearly doubled, Koester adds, rising from about 8 percent to the mid-teens. more

Note to SEC: Set a date.

That sentiment appears in a number of the IFRS road map comment letters the SEC received. It also reflects the desires of the 150-plus finance executives who participated in a Deloitte IFRS Web survey last month.

Sixty-two percent of survey respondents say they agree or strongly agree that the SEC should establish a specific date by which U.S. companies are required to use IFRS. Overall, the move to IFRS enjoys widespread support, or at least acceptance: Only 9 percent of survey respondents say they oppose (8 percent) or strongly oppose (1 percent). more

Outsourcing IT is one of the first suggestions to hit the table whenever top managers talk about reducing the IT spend. Offshore outsourcing — outsourcing to a vendor in a cheap labor locale like India, China, or Belarus — follows immediately behind.

A continuous debate has raged around offshore outsourcing (offshoring) since it appeared. Does it hurt U.S. jobs or boost U.S. competitiveness? Does it save money or cost money? What’s the net net for the company, the country? You can bet the question will come up in your organization the next time the IT budget is on the table.

In March, BusinessWeek reported on a study showing that CFOs at leading U.S. businesses are more likely to consider outsourcing to U.S.-based vendors rather than offshore. This is a clear shift in thinking from previous studies. At the same time, there is turmoil in the Asian outsourcing markets. Maybe it is time to review the offshoring question. more