The Sarbanes-Oxley
Act, commonly referred to as “SOX”, was enacted in 2002 as a
response to Enron and the Enron-like financial scandals of the time.
I’m in the enviable position of (1) being an ex-accountant and auditor,
and (2) selling software that among other things is used to track
compliance with SOX, which gives me some perspective on the impact SOX
has had on companies.
Without getting into the boring details, SOX can (and has) be generalized as forcing companies to document their risks (i.e. “what can go wrong”) and ensure that they have controls in place to prevent, or worst case detect, when something does go wrong. While it was a response to accounting abuse, SOX is sometimes interpreted by companies or their auditors more broadly to include virtually anything that could go wrong with the business. It can reach into the HR department, legal, IT, operations – everywhere.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Innovation Minute » Blog Archive » SOX is the mortal enemy of innovation
Author: InnovationMinute
