Greg Dukat CEO Indus

There really isn't a single most challenging Sarbanes-Oxley issue. There are three, including the following:

1. Visibility
2. Auditable integration from operations systems with backoffice systems
3. Flexible levels of approval

The visibility issue refers to the requirement of company executives to know where their physical and human assets are and how they are performing in order to intelligently attest to the operations and financial condition of their organization. I am constantly amazed at how many executives of publicly traded companies have no (or very little) idea of the current status of the assets in their manufacturing plants, their inventory of spare parts, or the amount of time wasted by their field service organization due to inefficient scheduling. Not only do these represent a huge portion of an organization's expenditures -- and therefore an important consideration in terms of SOx; they also offer a huge potential for savings via optimization with currently available technology.

This visibility can be enhanced by integrating operations systems (i.e., enterprise asset management, customer relationship management, field service management) and backoffice systems (i.e., finance, human resources, etc.). However, this integration can be a challenge in itself. And, the ability to provide an audit trail of information distributed amongst these diverse systems is an even greater challenge -- but in terms of SOx compliance, a necessity.

With visibility and auditable integration, organizations must achieve the next SOx challenge, which is the ability to allow flexible levels of approval within purchasing order systems, customer requests for service, or any area that requires document management or workflow within the enterprise.

The shared challenge among all of these issues is the need to rapidly deploy solutions in order to meet the government-mandated time requirements. Fortunately, forward-looking solutions vendors are developing software on open architectures enabling seamless and efficient integration amongst these heterogeneous systems.