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September Issue of the Taos Newsletter: Sarbanes-Oxley
(SOX)
Message from Taos CEO and Co-Founder, Ric Urrutia,
and Co-Founder, Alexis Tatarsky
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) filings become
a reality for most public companies for the first time this year.
In order to provide SOX certification, not only do company’s
financial processes need to be rock solid, but the underlying Information
Technology processes and infrastructure that support those filings
need to be certifiably bulletproof as well. As a CIO, or someone
who works for a CIO, your job performance now can make the difference
between your company having an excellent quarterly report, or alternatively
having the business headlines read “Company Fails Financial
Audit” – or worse yet, “CEO jailed – financial
data erroneous.”
Taos’ background is in IT consulting,
and since the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 we have been
engaged in lively discussions with the CIO community about what
its implications to IT might be. Increasingly, Taos is being
asked to help our clients prepare for their SOX audits. Rather
than view it purely as a burden, our clients are leveraging the
SOX mandate to improve the robustness and professionalism of
their IT organizations, much the way companies updated infrastructure
in response to Y2K a few years ago.
In many cases, we provide skilled project leadership
to the client’s
IT SOX-Readiness effort, working with people from other departments
to ensure that IT is an equal contributing partner, and that its
concerns are heard. Our hands-on work often involves developing
documented processes to auditable standards, shoring up existing
documentation, and ensuring process robustness.
In this issue of IT Intelligence we are pleased
to share with you an interview with the CIO of WebEx, Shawn Farshchi. WebEx is a young public company with about 1250 employees and
a $1 Billion market cap. Typical of many firms Taos works with,
WebEx has grown quickly in a dynamic market niche. Despite that,
as Shawn’s
interview shows, they have done a very good job of preparing for
Sarbanes-Oxley while keeping associated costs reasonable. Shawn’s wisdom, perhaps in part a result of his time at companies like
Oracle and DHL, includes level-headed perspectives about special
SOX software and the use of document repositories, and tips for
keeping a company’s readiness constantly up-to-date.
This month’s “Experts in the Industry” column
features Chris Motta, the Senior Director, IT Technology of Redback
Networks. Chris recently spoke at Taos about his company’s
experiences with SOX and some lessons he’s learned along
the way. Chris has a great depth of real-world experience,
and he makes many useful observations about where effort spent
preparing for SOX have real payback, and what he has observed his
peers at other companies struggling with. Among other things, Chris
discusses what the focus of a SOX team within IT should be, and
what its constituent roles might be. He also discusses specific
areas an IT department needs to look at, and key issues in attaining
compliance – technical,
procedural, and managerial.
Finally, we present two Case Studies, describing ways in which
Taos has worked with clients to help them get the most out of their
SOX Readiness effort. We believe that SOX presents an opportunity
for our clients to improve the robustness of their IT infrastructure
and processes, while bringing IT closer to the heart of the business,
and elevating its contribution to the business as a whole.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue of IT Intelligence. As always,
we appreciate your feedback. If you have comments or questions,
or would like to discuss what Taos can do to help you get the most
out of your preparation for Sarbanes-Oxley, please contact me, Ric Urrutia, directly at (408) 588-1200, or at ric@taos.com.
Sincerely,
Ric Urrutia
CEO & Co-Founder
Alexis Tatarsky
Co-Founder
Taos
"delivering excellence
in IT”
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