| 1. |
Cutting through Complexity with Business Agility |
Date published: April 2011
Source: IBM Global Business Services
Description: To learn how today’s companies are dealing with changing economic realities, IBM interviewed 1,500 CEOs in the financial, insurance and healthcare industries, investigating business leadership, strategies, technologies, and how agility impacts business transformation.
Key findings:
- Agility can be a powerful tool for cutting through the complexities currently dominating the corporate landscape.
- Agility has a dual role: it is both the end result of change as well as the driving force of change. It is measured by each company’s own expectations rather than by external benchmarks.
- The three major benefits of being an agile company are: agility shows rapid improvement and innovation; agility meets strategic directives quickly and intelligently, and it drives company-defined changes and goals.
- The key indicators of agility are knowing when to change, what to change, and how to change.
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| 2. |
Global Anti-Bribery and Corruption Survey |
Date published: July 2011
Source: KPMG
Description: A survey of 214 executives in the U.S. and UK to identify their most vexing anti-bribery and corruption (AB&C) compliance challenges and to understand how companies are preventing, detecting, and responding to AB&C risk.
Key findings:
- One in three U.S. and UK organizations does not perform an ABC risk assessment.
- Two in five U.S. and UK organizations with written AB&C policies do not distribute them to agents, distributors, vendors, brokers, joint-venture partners or suppliers.
- Three in five companies with such compliance programs that incorporate employee training do not require any third-party representatives to participate in the training.
- Nearly one in three U.S. and one in four UK companies require training less than once a year.
- Three in five companies do not exercise “right to audit clauses” in third party contracts.
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| 3. |
Beyond the Numbers: The Evolving Leadership Role of the CFO |
Date published: June 2011
Source: Canadian Financial Research Foundation (CFERF)
Description: 263 senior financial executives across Canada were surveyed — 66% were CFOs. The data from the survey was combined with interviews with CEOs and board members and insights gained from research forums held in various Canadian cities.
Key findings:
- The study found several external forces driving the role of the CFO from where it stands today, to where it needs to be.
- CFOs need to adapt to their evolving role of broadening their knowledge base in areas of risk management and corporate governance, global markets and translating strategic direction into clear organizational goals.
- The ability to communicate a vision and strategy that creates enterprise value, translate that into clear team goals, and help team members build an enterprise perspective will become increasingly important.
- There are important actions that current and aspiring CFOs should take to fulfill the expectations of their evolving role such as upgrading talent within their teams, spending more time with customers to achieve a broader understanding of their organizations, and spending more time with business unit leaders and COOs to develop strategy together.
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| 4. |
Do the right things. Get the right results: M&A Integration Survey |
Date published: June 2011
Source: PwC
Description: Senior management were surveyed from a sampling of large-capital and middle-market U.S. companies that had completed one or more mergers or acquisitions in the previous three years. The goal of the study was to understand the current state of M&A integration practice and its impact on management’s assessment of deal success. 135 respondents participated in the survey with 52% at the senior executive management level (CEO, president, COO, and CFO) and the remaining 48% senior managers of corporate development, operations, human resources and strategic planning, and information technology.
Key findings:
- Find and focus on the deal objectives that matter most
- Strategic goals are easier to reach than financial and operational goals, but fewer deals achieve them.
- Few deal makers report success at meeting their most important financial and operating goals.
- Larger companies report higher satisfaction with recent merger results than do smaller companies.
- A company’s deal experience level often varies greatly by acquisition type.
- Perform the integration activities with the greatest impact while facing challenges head-on
- Some integration activities are considered of greater importance to achieving deal success.
- Factors thought to have the greatest potentially adverse impact on realization of deal synergies: aligning company strategies and business models (36%), and cultural and communication challenges (34%).
- The most common postclose integration challenges: information technology/systems (43%), organizational structure, people management, and work practices (37%), operating procedures and business process (34%).
- Postclose challenges are thought to delay success, not put success’s ultimate achievement at risk.
- Stay focused on synergies, measure progress, and keep folks accountable by paying for performance
- Intentional focus on generating revenue and cost synergies makes a real difference.
- Some negative synergies were encountered more frequently than others.
- Those reporting more deal success measure their integrations in more ways more often.
- Those reporting more deal success also report a more direct tie between total compensation and deal outcomes in terms of roles closest to the integration.
- Engage the people side of M&A
- People-related integration activities are among those considered of greatest importance to deal success.
- Most deal-making companies report success at retaining key employees for the postclose transition period when they are needed most.
- CEOs report constraints on the supply of the right skills, yet their talent strategies are likely to focus on motivating and deploying staff.
- Getting involved earlier — and staying involved longer — improves deal success
- Approximately two-thirds of respondents were involved in the integration effort for a duration of 3 to 12 months.
- There’s a connection between deal success and the pace at which integration is carried out.
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| 5. |
Canadian SME IT Security Survey |
Date published: July 2011
Source: Trend Micro/Environics
Description: The research was conducted with a representative sample of 502 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Canada (defined as having fewer than 500 employees). According to Statistics Canada, 99% of all businesses in Canada are classified as SMEs; the large majority (87%) have fewer than 20 employees. Surveys were conducted with the individuals responsible for decisions about the company’s IT needs (in smaller companies, this was the business owners themselves).
Key findings:
- Internet-based IT plays a central role in the ongoing operations of Canadian SMEs.
- SMEs use Internet-based IT for a wide variety of purposes: the most common is communications (88%), followed by document management (53%), sales and marketing (52%), finance and accounting (44%), and supply chain management (40%), among others.
- Web-based applications are considered a vital part of day-to-day functioning for a majority (63%) of these businesses.
- Most SMEs believe a threat exists to the security of businesses’ online information. At the same time, they are somewhat complacent about the IT safeguards they themselves have in place and tend to underestimate the consequences of an Internet security breach.
- SMEs generally recognize that online information is at risk. A majority (68%) say there is at least a moderate threat of outsiders gaining access to a company’s online information. Views are divided about whether the threat arises from companies not taking the necessary precautions to protect their data (38%) or because existing software does not provide effective protection (33%) (the rest say both are equally responsible, or are unsure).
- Nonetheless, SMEs are largely confident about their own IT security. A large majority describe it as adequate (61%) or better (19% say it is state-of-the-art). As well, relatively few businesses are concerned about the risks posed by mobile devices such as BlackBerrys or iPhones (23% are very or somewhat concerned).
- In part, this confidence is based on limited experience with Internet security breaches. Only one in ten (12%) SMEs have fallen victim to such a breach. Those that have not experienced a breach downplay the potential consequences in terms of lost time and productivity (only 58% say such an outcome is very or somewhat likely). In fact, most (88%) SMEs who have had an Internet security breach suffered lost productivity; some also experienced a loss of client confidence (26%) or revenue (23%).
- SMEs do not put much effort into educating themselves about security for Internet-based IT. The majority (63%) rarely or never search out such information. When SMEs do look for advice or guidance about this topic, they turn primarily to external IT consultants.
- There is not yet widespread awareness of cloud computing, and only a very limited number of Canadian SMEs have adopted it, driven by a desire to spend less time and money on IT infrastructure. Security is a concern for cloud users, but for non-users, a bigger obstacle to adoption is a lack of understanding about how cloud applies to their business. Nonetheless, SMEs foresee a modest shift in the business world towards cloud over the next 12 to 18 months.
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| 6. |
Anticipating a New Age in Wealth Management |
Date published: June 2011
Source: PwC
Description: 275 organizations across 67 countries participated in the survey. The findings provide a number of perspectives on private banking and wealth management with the objective of guiding analysis and thinking in order to evolve private wealth businesses.
Key findings:
- The client is cautious, smart, less trusting and loyal, and now wants better service and clearer value.
- A much more demanding regulatory agenda will continue to challenge existing business models.
- There is a requirement for greater operational efficiency and effectiveness.
- Standing still is no longer an option. Being able to see beyond the pressures of today and implement effective change is critical.
- The top three strategic areas of focus for respondents are: 1) acquisition and retention of new and existing clients, 2) transforming the business model to meet the challenges of the external environment, and 3) sustainable revenue growth.
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| 7. |
Global Banking IFRS 9 Impairment Survey |
Date published: August 2011
Source: Deloitte
Description: This research sought to understand current thinking across the industry surrounding loan loss provisioning. The survey polled the views of 56 major banking groups headquartered in Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia Pacific and North America.
Key findings:
- Even with the uncertainty surrounding EU endorsement, more than half of participants are working on the assumption it will be endorsed.
- The major lobbying efforts have been focused on making the new model work rather than the technicalities of what the new model might be or what the potential implementation costs may be.
- Over a quarter of respondents to the survey do not believe the financial statements will be more useful when applying an expected loss impairment model.
- Many rank accounting change second to Basel III.
- The part of IFRS 9 relating to impairment appears to be broadly recognized as having the greatest impact on a bank’s business models and financial statements.
- The degree of awareness at board level was significantly higher at the largest and most geographically diverse institutions.
- Banks are concerned that the introduction of an expected loss model is likely to reduce the ease with which the financial statements can be understood by all but the most technically minded.
- The demand for banks to provide more transparency will continue.
- While the degree to which local regulators have previously taken an interest in financial reporting varies, the overriding sentiment was that expected loss provisioning would be of significant interest to local regulators in the future.
- 71% of banks will have started projects on classification and measurement by the end of 2011, with this number rising to 93% by the end of 2012.
- Credit risk and accounting/finance functions will play a key role and programs will require strong sponsorship from both the Chief Risk Officer and Chief Accounting/Financial Officer.
- For those who estimated the total budget required to meet IFRS impairment requirements, there was notable disparity in responses.
- Overcoming the operational challenges associated with sourcing and managing the data required will be key to efficient and effective implementation.
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| 8. |
The Role of Price and Cost in Driving High Performance in a Volatile Global Economy |
Date published: 2011
Source: Accenture
Description: 1,000 executives in 12 countries and eight industries were asked about their pricing strategies, practices and capabilities, and their enterprise’s recent and planned cost reductions.
Key findings:
- Most companies are planning for growth, but that growth is likely to be modest.
- When it comes to pricing, companies tend to most frequently use actions by competitors and the balance between supply and demand as inputs in setting prices. Comparatively fewer consider value-based and cost-plus strategies.
- Price optimization was one of the three most important strategic priorities in the past 18 months for seven in 10 companies, but an equal percentage of companies do not have sophisticated pricing capabilities.
- Companies face a wide range of challenges in optimizing pricing, including sales execution, inadequate pricing analytics, unclear pricing strategy, inadequate decision support/analytics, and governance and accountability incentives.
- In the past 18 months, 82% of executives globally said their company has undertaken a significant effort to reduce costs, and these efforts were seen as largely effective in creating sustained cost reduction by the vast majority of executives.
- Companies believe there are still opportunities to capture in cost reduction and, thus, more cost cutting is planned for the next six months (with strategic sourcing and enterprise rationalization being the most popular cost management actions).
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| 9. |
Communications Technologies Putting
Privacy at Risk |
Date published: August 2011
Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner
Description: The survey was conducted in order to gauge public understanding and awareness of privacy, particularly as it is affected by information technology, public safety, identity integrity and protection, and genetic technology.
Key findings:
- Canadians are heavy users of communications technologies, but many are not taking basic steps to protect their personal information.
- One-third of Canadians use public Wi-Fi sites where online communication may not be protected by encryption. Of those, 85% were concerned about risks to the security of their personal information.
- Younger Canadians aged 18 to 34 are the most enthusiastic users of technology, and they are also the most likely to use mechanisms to protect their privacy.
- Canadians are suspicious about the collection and use of personal information by public- and private-sector organizations. The majority said that governments and businesses do not take their obligations to protect privacy seriously.
- Most want tough sanctions against organizations that fail to properly protect the privacy of individuals.
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