Paisley Consulting Unveils Enhanced SOX, Compliance and Risk Management Tool; Industry Leading Risk Navigator Offers Risk Assessment Functionality to Achieve Optimal SOX Compliance

Business Wire, Dec 6, 2005

COKATO, Minn. -- Paisley Consulting, the recognized leader in business accountability software, today announced the latest evolution of the company's J2EE-based Risk Navigator(R) solution, now upgraded to include new risk assessment functionality. The enhanced product offers a more effective means to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and establishes long-term corporate governance and risk management practices by providing companies with the insight to identify only those controls critical to document. Thus, Risk Navigator empowers organizations to achieve optimal performance and to implement proactive risk management that includes compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. Today, Paisley Consulting boasts a client roster of over 1,200 customers, including 500 SOX customers, and serves more than 30,000 users around the world across a wide range of industries.

The need for Paisley Consulting's J2EE-based Risk Navigator solution with enhanced SOX compliance and risk management functionality is validated by a recent claim made by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that indicated that "one reason why too many controls and processes were identified, documented and tested was that in many cases neither a top-down nor a risk-based approach was effectively used."(1) The SEC's released statement was a direct response to the public outcry by thousands of organizations that they are spending an excessive percentage of resources complying with SOX mandates.

The risk assessment functionality of Risk Navigator supports the COSO enterprise risk management (ERM) framework assisting organizations in adhering to the SEC's recommended risk-based approach to compliance. Given that different business units feel uninformed about which controls they need to identify and document, controllers often create more documentation than is actually needed. Now this new functionality provides organizations with the means to more efficiently target and document the specific controls and processes necessary to meet SOX 302 and 404 requirements, effectively decreasing confusion and the amount of time and money previously wasted.

Risk Navigator supports three risk assessment methodologies that can be used in conjunction with each other, with the ability to see where the intersections occur, or they can be used independently. These methodologies are:

--Vertical risk assessment at any level of the business' organizational structure (the traditional approach used by risk management)

--Horizontal risk assessment at the process level (commonly used by internal auditing)

--Diagonal risk assessment keyed to organizational objectives (promoted by COSO ERM and supported in most progressive risk assessment methodologies)

"It is quite clear from recent roundtables and public filings that companies still do not feel they are equipped with the proper knowledge to effectively comply with Sarbanes-Oxley," said Tim Welu, CEO of Paisley Consulting. "Paisley Consulting's new risk assessment functionality underscores the company's unwavering commitment to listening to its customers' needs and providing them with the only products in the market available to meet them. Now customers can employ the SEC's recommended risk-based approach to SOX, thereby revolutionizing the compliance process, resulting in real business benefits."

Risk Navigator is an automated solution that can be easily configured to establish company-wide accountability through reliability and involvement related to ongoing compliance demands. The product supports Sarbanes-Oxley compliance (sections 302 and 404) and additional corporate governance requirements, and provides a long-term platform for enterprise risk management. Scalable to support globally dispersed organizations, the flexible platform can meet evolving regulatory and organizational requirements. Self-assessment surveys establish greater control for organizations to customize processes based on unique requirements. Role-based security safely distributes responsibilities and allows information to be appropriately shared through ad hoc reporting capabilities. Risk Navigator is one solution that provides total enterprise risk management control.

About Paisley Consulting

Founded in 1995, Paisley Consulting is the recognized leader in providing more than 1,200 organizations -- including 35 percent of the Fortune 100 -- with comprehensive and tightly integrated solutions to better identify and reconcile the risks impacting organizations, thereby ensuring that evaluations of operational risk are completed quickly, consistently and accurately.

Leveraging industry best practices, a common technology platform and a unified database to facilitate standardized, automated and collaborative processes across the enterprise, Paisley Consulting customers are empowered to improve the accuracy, consistency and efficiency associated with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, internal audit, general compliance and operational risk management initiatives. Developed for companies of every size and across multiple industries, Paisley Consulting's solutions can be implemented as an integrated whole for maximum value or may be deployed as individual point solutions. Either way, our best-of-value solutions can help you reduce costs and target opportunities for continuous improvement.