The initial focus for a Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) program is to collect and disseminate information to stakeholders across the enterprise to enable early and systematic management of risk exposures and disclosures, and to prevent, detect, report and remedy violations for all applicable laws, regulations and policies. This is no small task. It entails automation of manual processing and elimination of redundancy and inconsistency in data and processes. Here is a list of the 10 most pressing GRC issues corporations are concerned with today:
1. Regulatory compliance (e.g., Solvency II, Dodd-Frank, Basel III, etc.).
2. Vendor supply chain (e.g., food, drug, medical).
3. Audit (detection of internal control weaknesses, potential violations of policy).
4. Enterprise risk management (both financial and nonfinancial, including brand reputation).
5. Fraud (financial crimes in medical, financial, government and other areas, including money-laundering).
6. Business continuity (disaster recovery from flood, storm, earthquake, terrorism, explosion, contamination).
7. Health and safety environment (e.g., cessation of operations when workforce would be at unmanageable risk).
8. Predatory and fair lending and financial reform.
9. Sustainability and green initiatives.
10. Privacy and information security.
When it’s time to choose a software solution to manage and automate data for GRC, ensure that it addresses operational risk management, policy management, the audit function, and business strategy planning and management. The emphasis beyond that base level of operational coverage is something that each organization will make based upon its needs, goals and risk appetite. GRC is the direction toward which all firms need to move to be successful and avoid the surprises that can cause them to cease operation or be acquired by a competitor (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Countrywide, New Century, IndyMac, Washington Mutual and Wachovia).

For the moment I recommend you pay no attention to the political discourse going on. The primary season will arrive soon enough, and then our airwaves will be consumed with debates and negative ads. I use the term, debate, loosely because television appeals to the lowest common denominator by potraying social and political debates as people shouting at each other. Everybody on TV exercises his or her right to express dogmatic beliefs at the top volume, but we almost never see a model for deep, attentive listening. The value of genuinely being in each other’s presence, regardless of whether we happen to agree, seems to be almost completely lost in our social discourse. That’s why we get so little meaning from all our public arguments. It seems that we don’t even know how to facilitate genuine presence, the authentic being-with-each-other that may actually bring about real, positive change.

Commerce lives and dies by labels. Some can be informative, and some can be totally misleading. We have learned to be cautious about labels when it comes to products we purchase. It’s too bad we don’t give the same scrutiny to labels when they apply to people. Often, we hear that an individual is “not qualified,” a “trouble-maker,” or just simply different than we are, and we exclude them from employment, from our social circle, our neighborhoods, and even our churches. How many labels have been slapped on you that are unfair, have no basis, and are plain wrong. Why label anyone given our experience. An individual is simply a unique soul, worthy of the same love and respect given to him/her by our maker. When we stop labeling and excluding we open ourselves to a world full of suprise and mystery. Think of the next person you meet as a Christmas package that you can’t figure out what’s inside. Slowly remove the wrapping and be prepared for a wonderful surprise.

Five factors to measure your risk-bearing capacity

By Paul F. Nunes, Accenture | Published: December 13, 2011

There is no single number that represents a company’s risk-bearing capacity. A risk-bearing capacity analysis looks at these five dimensions individually and in interaction with one another to provide both qualitative and quantitative indicators of overall capacity, as well as currently employed and identified reserve capacity.
Financial strength – An aggregation of the firm’s financial measures and ratios such as cash flow at risk and debt equity. Traditional solvency parameters include leverage, credit rating, cash generation capabilities, trading multiples, earnings strength and diversification.

Management capacity – An evaluation of management processes and how they are employed to add value to the shareholder; a blend of credit rating, investment analysis and corporate governance analysis. Management capacity also covers leadership’s strategy execution and crisis resolution.

Competitive dynamics – Refers broadly to a company’s position in the marketplace relative to competitors and market trends.

Operational flexibility – Ability to react to market trends and developments while still maintaining strategic focus and financial continuity. Operational flexibility includes components such as production line switchability or alternative supply chain sourcing capabilities.

Risk management systems – Risk management systems include the people, technology, systems and processes that a company employs to identify, measure, mitigate and monitor its risk exposures and protect its solvency and stability. The protective dimension includes disaster recovery, business continuity planning and crisis management planning.

This article originally appeared in Outlook, an Accenture publication. Copyright 2010 Accenture. All rights reserved. Condensed and reprinted by permission.

Election season is coming fast and you will see a lot of finger pointing and blame shifting from all sides. Remember the old adage when you point a finger three are pointing at yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear from someone that I have a solution rather than I have someone to blame?

The Labor Department said Friday that the nation’s employers added 120,000 jobs last month, after adding 100,000 jobs in October. The unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent, after having been mired around 9 percent for most of 2011.
November’s jobless rate was the lowest recorded since March 2009. The rate fell partly because more workers got jobs, but also because about 315,000 workers dropped out of the labor force, and the jobless rate counts only people who are actively looking for work.

Isn’t this good news? Not to the 315,000 people who have been unemployed so long they have given up looking for work. We need to look beyond statistics and to the lives of real people. Try telling a factory worker after being unemployed for over two years, and actively looking for work the entire time, that the solution to his unemployment is “just give up.” Then he’s no longer unemployed according to the government. He’ll ask who’s going to pay the rent and put food” on the table. Their answer to that question is “that’s your problem, you’ve solved our problem by quiting. We can now crow about a recovering economy while our roads and schools crumble.” If you like statistics ask how many of these new jobs are Christmas hires who go away December 25, 2011. Those hires are not unemployed either. Maybe next the government will say the four million workers who have been out of work for over a year are technically no longer available for work. Then their numbers will look very good. We are back to full employment.

My laid off factory worker will quote Disraeli in response, “Statistics are lies.” (Technically the quote attributed to Disraeli — “that there are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics” — he never uttered. However, if our government can say someone who has been searching for work for two years and finally gives up is no longer unemployed. A little misattribution is chicken feed in comparison to the chicken **** the government is trying to get us to swallow.

Cheering 315,000 thousand people giving up looking for work reminds me of Orwell’s 1984.

Soon the Republicans will be holding primaries, The President is already campaigning, one-third of the Senate and all of the House is up for election, and all we hear about is discussion about the Candidate’s faith, their position on abortion, allegations of sex and harrasment, and the candidates haircuts and ties. If we allow this to continue we deserve to be disappointed in our elected officials.

Instead we should demand they address the poor state of public education, decaying infrastructure,criminalization of everything, public health, and unemployment. Those candidates who refuse to present concrete proposals should be exposed. Those candidates who run on slogans of change, new direction, and against everything, should to taken to the outhouse of public opinion. If there was ever the time for our country to rally around people with plans rather than rhetoric it is now.

If you’ve ever seen the look on somebody’s face the day they finally get a job, I’ve had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And its not about the paycheck, it’s about respect, it’s about looking in the mirror and knowing that you’ve done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don’t really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try. – From the movie — Dave.

Over four million Americans have been out of work for more than a year. This doesn’t count all the millions who get a job-lose a job, get a job-lose a job, work part time because they can’t get a full time job, quit trying, are disabled and can’t get a job doing anything, the list goes on and on until the reality is that close to twenty percent of able-bodies Americans who want a full time meaningful job can’t find one. Yet, since its old news its forgotten news. The media and our leaders focus on issues and events that are more sensational or look so far into the future they ignore the snake right in front of their nose. Neither political party, the tea party, or the occupy folks want to talk about the man or woman who simply wants the respect that a meaningful job brings. Until a voice sings their song, it is heard, and we join in the chorus — we are lost.

by Webb Hubbell

This is very similar to how MLB baseball salary arbitrations are resolved.

Both Parties put their best offer on the table. A three judge binding mediation panel hears both side’s offer and their reasoning. Then the mediation panel chooses one offer or the other. No splitting the baby in half. Both parties agree to be bound by the decision. This way both sides tend to make a reasonable offer, because if their’s is clearly unreasonable the other side’s offer is likely to be chosen.

During the mediation process the player’s begin to practice. The season can begin December 15, 2011.

What idea do you have?

When I was young, my parents and everyone they knew talked in terms of 65 being the time to retire. Our medicine, our economy, and most of all our understanding of aging makes that target not only not realistic, but also a tremendous waste of knowledge and resources. Almost everyone recognizes this except our government and insurance companies – our government because politicians can’t think beyond their next election, and insurance companies because by keeping the retirement age low they make out like bandits when they sell disability, extended care, and certain life policies. Their policies are designed to quit providing disabilty income and extended care benefits when you reach social security retirement age of 65-66, long term care benefits traditionally stop at seventy, and life insurance premiums are based on life time acturial tables that lag behind true aging in America.

The government makes you start taking Social Security way too early, and they force you to start raiding your retirement plans before you are ready to access your savings. All of this creates a mind set of putting our most valuable resources out to pasture before their through contributing to society. in our series on public health we will explore our need to rethink the role of elderly in our society. We need to develop an environment where we involve our elders rather than shut them out. We need to facilitate elders giving back their wisdom they’ve extracted from life and not merely rock their remaining life away.

“Society turns away from the aged worker as though he belonged to another species…. Old age exposes the failure of our entire civilization.” — Simone de Beauvoir