In my last blog, I began explaining the changes in target-setting when switching to a rolling forecast to eliminate annual budgets. Target-setting switches to midterm targets that are relative to peers, competition, and world-class benchmarks.

This frees rolling forecasts, which should be used to help you steer your organization. But you need to avoid the devastating practice of “paying for forecast accuracy.” While many have started to advocate this, it is one of the dumbest things management can do. The cost payment is magnified by the tendency to suboptimize results. more

While the possibility of Major Regulatory Overhaul (e.g., an SEC-CFTC merger), IFRS implementation, and XBRL have soaked up the majority of GRC newsprint in the past six months, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement efforts have quietly grown more aggressive.

The latest sign that FCPA compliance should be a top GRC priority for many companies came this summer when the SEC showed its willingness to dig into Brazilian regulatory matters while investigating Utah-based Nature’s Sunshine Products, a vitamin and supplement company.

Under the terms of the enforcement settlement, the former Nature’s Sunshine CFO will pay $25,000 (as will the company’s CEO, in addition to a $600,000 fine that will be paid by the NASDAQ-listed company). more

The latest Hackett Group study suggests companies are not agile enough or, in their words, have failed the agility test. Hackett sees the agility problem when companies are unable to reduce key expenditure categories during the recession as fast as their revenues are plummeting.

As Hackett puts it in their latest report, “Typical Global 1000 companies (with $26 billion in annual revenue) are losing out on up to $1 billion in annual cost savings as a result of this lack of agility.”

Even if you’re not a multibillion-dollar company, you stand to benefit from increased agility. If companies are to reduce costs as fast as revenue falls, they will need to adopt some of wiredFINANCE’s six technologies that bolster agility. more

Several years ago, there was a lot of interest in going “lean.” Much of the interest was being generated in manufacturing companies who were finding that implementing lean philosophies and practices was helping them to increase productivity, reduce cycle times, reduce inventory carrying costs, and control other costs through greater productivity.

While there was talk about lean principles moving into the service industry, I have not seen many reports on the experiences of service companies who have made the transformation. So what is the status of lean moving beyond manufacturing? more