Business leaders gather to talk transparency

Global Finance, Sep 2003 by Keeler, Dan

AROUND THE WORLD

UNITED STATES

For businesses bewildered by the ever-growing demands for corporate accountability and compliance, help may be at hand. In late July a group of more than 175 executives from companies such as IBM, Intuit, AT Kearney and Verizon launched the Business Performance Management Forum (BPMF), a group dedicated to helping businesses manage and measure their performance.

At its launch the BPMF released a survey on corporate board members' attitudes to performance accountability that contained some fairly disturbing revelations. For instance, the study found that 85% of the board members surveyed were anxious about the methodologies and tools used by management to track business performance. Two thirds grumbled that they were uncomfortable with the accuracy of their company's financial business forecasts, although only one third felt they didn't have enough information to ensure appropriate transparency to investors. Jeff Rodek, chairman and CEO at BPMF founding sponsor Hyperion, drew a heartening conclusion from the study: "Board members recognize their increasingly significant role in corporate governance."

According to another member of the BPFM hoard, Hal Sirkin, senior vice president at Boston Consulting Group, the creation of the forum was prompted largely by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. "Business performance, on every level, is an issue that is striking home in many companies, firstly as a result of Sarbanes-Oxley, which is making them step back and think through what their obligations are," he says. "It is also causing them to think about how they measure business performance-and how they report it."

Sirkin explains that the BPFM will provide an environment where businesses can share best practices and increase awareness of performance management and measurement techniques. Businesses that get involved will certainly have a range of experts on tap as many of founders and members are in the business of business performance management. And while he admits that "there may be sales opportunities for companies in all of this" Sirkin takes the high ground: "There is a tremendous opportunity buried in almost every single company in rethinking several levels down how decisions are made-and what information is used in making those decisions-to tease out where there is room for enhanced profitability and enhanced growth. This forum is a way to help them do that."

Of course, it will also present a tremendous opportunity for the consultants to boost their own business performance.

-Dan Keeler