GuardianERM.Net Demonstration

Introducing Guardian ERM^®

Guardian ERM is the next generation enterprise risk, compliance and audit application because it is designed to help organisations improve, automate and streamline all the key processes necessary for good corporate governance and probity.

Guardian ERM brings together all the key pillars of sound corporate governance in one, fully integrated system to drive sustainability and efficiency.

It is a web-based system that can be delivered securely via the internet or intranet.

Guardian ERM is packed with features and functionality to suite small, medium and large enterprises, government and non-profit organisations.  Guardian ERM can:

• Support a wide range of business requirements including ERM, compliance, audit and incident management

• Manage all risks and opportunities

• Enable a number of work groups to work together to meet their obligations

• Promote the use of good practice methodologies

• Support local and global regulatory requirements

• Improve the effectiveness of risk, audit and compliance programs

• Reduce the compliance cost and risk

• Allow organisations to reinvest savings into high priority risk and compliance projects

One system that supports wide range of business requirements

Today’s regulatory requirement sees organisation undertaking a number of activities. Guardian ERM is very versatile and can be used for a wide range of business requirements relating to risk, governance, compliance and audit.

• Enterprise-wide risk management

• Regulatory compliance

• Risk-based internet audit

• External audit

• Quality control audits

• Sarbanes-Oxley Act s404 compliance audits

• Incident and issues management

Manage all risks and opportunities

Guardian allows user to identify and manage a range of enterprise-wide, internal and external risks and opportunities.

• Strategic and operational opportunities

• Strategic risk

• Operational risk

• Regulatory risk

• Financial risk

• Insurable risk

• OH&S risk

• Technological risk

• Project risk

• Security risk

• Environmental risk

• Reputation risk

Enable work groups to work together to meet their obligations

Governance may ultimately be ‘owned’ by the Board, but there are many people who play an important role in overseeing and managing risk and compliance initiatives.  They need to make decisions critical with sufficient information

Guardian enables a number of work groups from across the organisation, in different locations, to work cohesively together for greater efficiency. Guardian ERM will support the needs of a range of users across the organisation including

• Board and executive management can view corporate scorecards and related KPI’s to support internal attestations and various legal declarations

• Risk owners can update, edit and view their risk and control profiles

• Risk managers can plan, track and monitor the progress of a range of ERM initiatives

• Compliance managers can set-up various compliance programs and facilitate periodic assessments

• Legal Counsel who manage regulatory risks

• Internal auditors can schedule and perform internal control audits, attribute testing and conduct various control questionnaires

• External auditors can review various internal control and audit reports during audit planning

• Insurance specialists can review risks, record incidents and report on insurance controls

• Actuaries can assess the organisations risk management framework to support FCR’s

• Quality specialists responsible for monitoring and testing a range of quality standards

• IT specialists responsible for managing technological risks covering disaster recovery, project management, data security and integrity

• Other stakeholders including government, stock exchange and industry regulators can review reports to demonstrate compliance with various requirements    

Promotes the use of good practice methodologies

An organisations risk, compliance, governance and audit needs will vary depending on the industry it operates in, its stakeholders, its environment, its structure and its geographic locations.  

Today, there are a number of good practice standards, principles and methodologies that support managing risk, quality management, internal control and internal audit.  Some are mandatory, others are good practice guidelines, but in most cases, organisations will adopt the principles that best supports them.

Guardian supports all major best practice risk management, governance, compliance and audit principles.

• ISO31000 Risk Management - Principles and Guidelines

• AS/NZS:4801 OH&S Management Systems

• HB221: Business Continuity Management

• AS3806 Compliance Programs

• Institute of Internal Audit Performance Standards 2110, 2120, 2500

• COSO Enterprise Risk Management

• FERMA

• ISO 9000 related certification

Flexibility to support local and global regulatory requirements

Global research firm Gartner advises that firms that choose one off solutions for each regulatory challenge will spend ten times more money on compliance projects than those that take a more proactive approach.

A unique feature of Guardian is its ability to work across a range of regulatory and legislative requirements and handle the most challenging regulatory needs.

Guardian ERM can be used to assist compliance with local and international regulatory requirements.

• APRA Prudential Standards

• PHIAC Prudential Standards

• Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) Listing Rules

• Industry specific standards

• BASEL II

• FSA (UK) Rules & Standards

 Guardian ERM can help demonstrate active compliance with range of local and international  Acts including:

• Sarbanes-Oxley Act

• Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act

• FSRA Act

• Canada bill 198

• Commercial Code  - Japan’s version of Sarbanes Oxley

• Loi sur La Sécurité Financière (LSF) - France's version of the Sarbanes Oxley

Improve the effectiveness of risk, audit and compliance programs

As a comprehensive and integrated system, Guardian ERM’s primary role is to enhance the sharing of critical information, promote accountability and simplify all key risk, compliance and audit processes workflows. This helps small, medium and large global organizations to improve the overall effectiveness of their risk management, audit and compliance program.

This is achieved by establishing an appropriate organisation structure to manage risk, establishing clear responsibilities and creating a library of risks, controls and audit procedures.  

Guardian will be the only system your organization will need to:

• Establish the parameters and context of your risk, compliance and audit  program in Guardian ERM

• Record, analyse and monitor risk exposures from all sources across the organisation

• Document and evaluate the effectiveness of all controls that manage the risk

• Enable risk owners to review risks and perform self assessment electronically

• Attach important documents such as process maps, narratives

• Enable third-party audits of controls

• Record all audit results via electronic work papers/documentation

• Produce audit reports directly from Guardian ERM

• Log, track and manage incidents/issues to completion

• Automatically remind people of important activities via email workflow

• Track the progress of compliance and audit initiatives, pin-point control weaknesses and assess the organisations level of risk.

• Produce comprehensive reports to key stakeholders such as the Board and other audit, risk and compliance committees

Reduce compliance cost and compliance risk

In 2006, US companies spent over $27B on compliance including $6B on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance alone.  In Europe, Companies spent $1.7B. In Australia, large organisations spend anywhere from $8M to $60M per annum. 

Most of the compliance costs can be attributable to initial assessment and setup costs.  However, once a program is established, there a number of ongoing compliance burdens:

•  Compliance documentation that is all over the place

• Fragmented risk, compliance and audit processes

• Patchy monitoring

• Chaotic, frequent and infrequent reporting requirements 

Guardian ERM is designed to reduce the ongoing administrative burden, compliance risk and cost by:

• Replacing many of your existing risk management, compliance, audit and incident management databases and spreadsheets

• Allowing different work groups to share data, libraries and information to reduce time associated with re-keying, cutting and pasting in different documents and systems

• Tracking the cost of each control

• Helping you focus efforts on high risk areas and key controls

• Conducting semi quantification risk assessments

Reinvest savings into high priority risk and compliance projects

After achieving a more effective and efficient risk, compliance and audit framework, organisations can reinvest the time and cost savings into other higher value and critical initiatives such as:

• Gaining a better understanding of new systems and processes impacting the organisation

• Benchmarking risk, compliance, audit and incident KPI’s

• Supporting business process improvement  

• Conducting more comprehensive risk analysis

• Conducting more comprehensive scenario analysis and “what-if” workshops

• Spending more time with important stakeholders

• Refining and realigning risk appetite analysis

• Ongoing risk and compliance training  

The Guardian ERM difference

Many of today’s risk, governance and compliance software offer little or no choice and flexibility.  Guardian ERM offers a range of options to suite every type of organisation and industry.

Guardian ERM has multi-client capabilities to enable accounting and consulting firms to use Guardian ERM for as many clients as required.

Customisation is available to organisations who want their own tailored system and want to reduce development  time, cost and risk by starting with the Guardian ERM platform and building up accordingly

Guardian ERM is designed and developed in Australia by the InConsult Group.  It is delivered globally exclusively by authorised members of the InConsult Group.

The development team consists of business analysis, programmers and a team of enterprise risk management, compliance, governance and audit specialists who understand the issues and reality of today’s compliance needs.  The business specialists have years of extensive “hands on” and management experience in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas covering all aspects of business operations.

We work closely with our stakeholders including big four accounting firms, risk consultants, clients and prospective client to understand their current and emerging needs to refine and enhance their Guardian ERM experience.

Demonstration Dates

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

Time

12:00pm - 2:00pm (light lunch provided)

Venue

InConsult

Level 3, 66 King Street,  Sydney  NSW

Cost

Free

Registration

To attend an information session, view a demonstration of the GuardianERM.Net system and find out how this powerful web-based system can help with your risk, audit, compliance and incident management, please book a free session of your choice.

Click here to register