|
As
an officer of a corporation, or a member of the executive management
team, you are aware of the unprecedented demands and increased scrutiny
on the “C” level executive’s performance.
You must deal with new regulatory compliance,
growing fiduciary responsibilities, managing and leading for
competitive
advantage,
and constantly
searching for new untapped efficiencies. In many
instances, the smallest technical detail is in contention for
your attention at an equal level to profound management decisions
you face.
You already
are aware of the reality and urgency of SEC regulatory compliance.
The new requirements
to attest to the reliability of the underlying systems in a business
and withstand the scrutiny of an independent audit of these systems
should be a vital concern (Sarbanes-Oxley
2002 Sec. 404). Your
greatest risk is in not knowing!
Benefits:
The short-list
There are trends, and then there are megatrends. One of the most common
strategic errors seen is missing the signals that have the potential to
morph entire industries. The three critical areas most often misread by a CEO
are technology, competition, and the government. |
|
"Whether it is anticipating a regulatory
shift or planning for the impact of a technological advance,
responding to issues caused by megatrends is a make-or-break
event for a business. Megatrends can appear slowly on the
horizon, or they can emerge more suddenly -- but their
impact on an industry's future is tsunami-like. CEOs who
can proactively, accurately size up megatrends and evolve
their businesses accordingly are less likely to find themselves
struggling for survival down the road." Stephen
F. Cooper, chairman of Kroll Zolfo Cooper.
|
|
Risk
Mitigation |
confidence
in the underlying information technology infrastructure
that is used to manage and document the financial and operational
systems in the company |
|
Competitive
Advantage |
enhanced
business continuance capabilities based on regular test
and review of the database as a mission critical element
in the high availability and disaster recovery plans of
the company |
|
Competitive
Intelligence |
unparalleled
capabilities to rapidly assess the quality and validity
of a merger or acquisition prospects underlying systems |
|
Quality
and Efficiency |
risk
mitigation and maximized performance of developers, DBAs,
and production IT staff from systems - designed from the
onset -with the right tools to ensure operational integrity
and performance over the complete lifecycle of the solution |
The devil is in the detail:
It may seem unusual for a corporate director
to deal with what would appear to be unnecessary detail technology
such as the schema of a database; but nothing could be further
from the truth. The database is the heart of the applications
that track and report the business of the corporation. At the
heart of the database is the schema. The schema is, essentially,
where the business rules and logic for the business systems begin.
The schema is a single point-of-failure element in the whole
hierarchy of IT infrastructure. If the schema is flawed, or outdated,
the results and reports from the systems that rely on the database
may be suspect. Flaws in the schema are the result of intentional
and unintentional modifications that are made
to the database throughout its lifecycle.
|
