California-based West Trax Applications is offering a Benchmark Express Compliance Assessment service for companies using SAP systems. It offers a “corporate level review of governance and compliance issues.”
The Compliance Assessment service provides senior executives with a detailed analysis of the usage and effectiveness of their business processes. Compliance requires the monitoring of all processes and the service provides current, accurate and objective data essential to measure business effectiveness. In addition, says West Trax, the service identifies the potential to substantially reduce costs, by as much as 20%.
WestTrax says evolving governance legislation such as Basel II and Sarbanes-Oxley is driving senior company executives to introduce processes that ensure compliance. “A review of recent headlines illustrates the penalties for failure,” says a company spokesman.
A recent global survey of banks – by the Financial Times Research Centre, sponsored by Accenture, Mercer Oliver Wyman and SAP – indicated that they see significant challenges remaining in their preparations to implement the Basel II Capital Accord. Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of banks surveyed described their enterprise-wide risk management framework as poor or average.
“Many organisations are not aware of the compliance exposures and risks present in their SAP systems,” says WestTrax. “Audits and due diligence often assess SAP systems assuming they are being used as designed – this may not be the case. Often, many of the SAP standard processes are unused, yet still incur substantial licence and ongoing support costs. The inclusion of non-standard processes incurs additional costs and poses potential risks in internal financial controls. Many organisations are wasting significant time and money maintaining, upgrading, and out-sourcing redundant or ineffective software. Many are paying twice for software and support.”
WrestTrax says these issues threaten an organisation’s compliance efforts, demonstrating that governance in SAP environments is a business management challenge, not an IT problem. “Compliance is an ongoing process, not a one-off IT project,” says the spokesman.
The new service provides an analysis of clients’ SAP systems. A detailed report identifies compliance exposures, audit and due diligence issues, and optimisation levels of system performance, productivity and quality. Evaluated recommendations for savings and improvements are provided.
The service is available immediately and is priced at GBP35,000 (EUR50,000).
West Trax Applications has its headquarters in Irvine California, with operations in the UK and Germany. Existing clients include Douglas, Siemens, Toyota, and Zeiss.