COSTA MESA, Calif., June 27, 2005 - Resources Audit Solutions, the Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Audit service line of Resources Global Professionals (Parent Company Nasdaq: RECN), an international professional services firm, today released survey results that indicate nearly half of the nation's largest companies have not institutionalized their Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance and their compliance management software is not yet enterprise-wide.
The results also show that while many of the companies are experiencing the impact of SOX at all levels of their business, they have not been quantitatively measuring the return on investment (ROI) of their significant SOX compliance efforts, including compliance management software. This is despite the fact that respondents have invested in an average of two or more external firms for SOX compliance support.
"Our survey results show that in the first year of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, many of the nation's largest companies did not fully institutionalize their compliance processes nor integrate them into their day-to-day business operations," said Steve Mezzio, Managing Director, Resources Audit Solutions. "Company executives understand the potential benefit of evolving SOX compliance from a "project" focus to a fully integrated process, though facilitating that transition with an eye toward measuring the ROI of SOX 404 remains a significant challenge."
For year two compliance and beyond, Resources believes that companies that begin to institutionalize an integrated compliance process and actively measure the benefits and costs of SOX 404 compliance, will be better equipped to:
To gauge the opinion of those who have been managing their SOX compliance programs, Resources fielded this survey with over 200 executives and achieved a response rate of nearly 30 percent, or 60 companies. Of these 60 companies, nearly two-thirds have revenues exceeding $1 billion, with 25 percent having revenues exceeding $10 billion.
The survey was intended to identify the impact that SOX compliance has had on businesses from a resources perspective, and to understand the outlook for continued compliance needs and costs.
An independent, third-party survey company provided a hyperlink to the survey questions and respondents were able to complete the survey online for anonymous, untainted data collection. Responses were collected over a three-week period beginning in May 2005.
Key findings include:
If you are interested in seeing complete results of the Resources Audit Solutions SOX survey or would like to speak with Steve Mezzio, please contact Kerrie McHugh at 212-367-6936 or via email at kerrie.mchugh@eurorscg.com.
ABOUT RESOURCES GLOBAL PROFESSIONALS
Resources Global Professionals, Inc. is an international professional services firm that provides accounting and finance, human capital, information management, supply chain management, internal audit/risk management, and legal services on a project basis. The Company was originated as part of Deloitte in North America. Its legacy in Europe is from Ernst & Young and in Asia Pacific from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Australia and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Taiwan. Resources Global Professionals today is completely independent, autonomous and publicly traded on NASDAQ. In addition to its project professional services, Resources Global Professionals has established itself as a leading business services provider for companies seeking independent and cost effective assistance for meeting or complying with many of the complex business and regulatory issues in today's marketplace.
Headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, the Company operates from more than 60 worldwide offices. The U.S. client portfolio boasts more than 30 of the Fortune 50 companies. The company was recently named to Forbes 200 Best Small Companies list for the third consecutive year. More information about the company is available at www.resourcesglobal.com.