Assessments & Diagnostics

Almost 80% of customers expect the corporations they deal with to operate and be accountable both socially and environmentally.Where do you stand on these increasingly visible issues?The buying public is acutely aware that our environment is suffering and that poverty is a driver of child- and cheap-labour practices. Eighty per cent of the world’s resources are being consumed by 20% of the world’s population.

These inequities are making buyers aware of their own need to make responsible choices, such as buying from organizations that are moving toward sustainability and becoming truly accountable for their actions.A shift in your organization’s direction won’t happen overnight. But you should be ready when your customers ask about your sustainable development strategies and policies for social responsibility.Start now. Its going to take a while to get there.

Call us to see how you can get started.

While Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) may be a complex piece of legislation and ISO 9001 a procedural puzzle, your internal controls don’t have to be. Using standardized models and techniques, you can prepare your organization for virtually any eventuality, whether it’s SOX, a new quality model, the introduction of new technology, or restarting after a disaster.How prepared are you to respond to the new demands for internal controls, such as those introduced in SOX, Health Canada, or the FDA?

How satisfied are you with your leadership capabilities? Are you as effective as you could be?

The common thread you need to weave into the oversight of your organization is visibility and awareness into the black box of your operation that simultaneously supports your financial, leadership, and operational objectives without imposing the crippling constraints of bureaucratic procedures.

You can lead your organization with controlled accountability without losing your entrepreneurial spirit or agility.

In fact, the more disciplined you are as an organization, the more nimble you can be. It all depends on how you do it.

Call us to find out more.

Your organization will perform only as well as your management team is capable. But middle managers are usually sandwiched between unrelenting pressures to perform from above and impossible demands on their time from direct reports.

It’s not enough to place high expectations on your team. You must support them with both flexible processes and internal controls that make sense and give you what you need.

How well is your management team performing?
Are they consistently achieving objectives according to plan?
Have you had any unpleasant surprises?

The more controlled and structured you are, the easier it will be for everyone to be efficient and effective in their work. The foundation for increased creativity and job satisfaction starts with good leadership. Then you can start to leverage the benefits gained toward new strategies, challenges, and growth.

We can help. Let us show you how.

Many organizations believe that as long as they are financially profitable, they’ve met their targets. They also conclude that they’re a lean operation because everyone is busy, they work overtime, and no one is ever idle.

Unless you’ve analysed and optimized your processes, there’s a lot more work to be done. Virtually every organization can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their processes. Measuring what you’re doing is the only way to determine how well you’re really doing. You won’t know how much you’re wasting until you do.

You may know your financial scorecard results, but do you know how effectively your infrastructure processes are working?How much waste is generated through inefficiencies and rework?

Call us to discuss how to become better at what you do.

Effective risk management is performed continuously throughout the life-cycle of a system or project. Mitigating those risks successfully means consistently performing, at both the project and organizational levels, activities such as these are:

•  defining the scope of risk management to be performed
•  defining your strategies for risk management
•  identifying risks according to those strategies and throughout the project as new risks develop
•  analyzing the risks and the priority in which to apply resources to monitor these risks
•  defining, applying, and assessing risk measures to determine changes in the status of risk and in the progress of the monitoring activities
•  applying appropriate actions to reduce or avoid the impact of risk.

Investment Due Diligence

Approximately 3 in 10 businesses receiving venture capital become successful enough to gain the expected return on investment. For software companies, the forecast is worse: 1 in 10.

The rigour for due diligence most often consists of a paper audit, interviews with the executive management team, a review of the financials, and a market analysis of the product or service. Traditionally, there has been no thorough measurement or analysis of the organization’s operational performance – and no other way to measure risk or to forecast the likelihood of success based on the efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability of the management system.

Investors in software companies have fared even worse. It’s well known in the industry that the quality of the software wholly depends on the quality of the processes used to develop it. That’s why the US department of defence, Health Canada, and the FDA all require evidence of process compliance whenever software is life-critical.

Many investors know the markets, but have little technical expertise in software engineering. A software product may look good, but how sound is the architecture when considering future releases that incorporate user-generated enhancements?

Maintenance consumes most of a software product’s life. It’s when the return on investment is supposed to be captured. But unless the software was engineered appropriately, using a sound development process, the organization may see its profits depleted by severe defects, ongoing fixes, and patchwork code that results in high customer support costs, all of which are attributable to process.

Now, the capability of an organization deliver can be measured through the use of empirically-based process measurements. What this delivers to investors and to senior executives is an accurate view of just how well the company’s processes are being managed, how efficient they are, and how likely they are to encounter internally- or customer-generated crises in the course of daily operations.

You can now look into the future of your investment and see how this major component will affect it. Call us to learn more.

Disaster Recovery

Most organizations think they perform due diligence and risk management adequately, until it’s time to mobilize a business continuity plan. That’s when they realize they have access to only outdated information, incomplete data and records, unworkable strategies, and unprepared employees.

The losses incurred during attempts at business resumption can be debilitating.

How up to date is your business continuity plan? 
How long would it take you to restart your business in the event of a disaster? 
How much would it cost you for each day you were down?

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Be proactive. We can help.