CPM and Innovation

Failing to understand and embrace change and innovation can be costly. Did you know that the WSJ reports that over 20 companies were removed from the S&P 500 index in this past decade? What happened? They failed to innovate on one level or another.

IBM CEO Study Reveals the “Change Gap”: One of the most comprehensive CEO global surveys by IBM in late 2009, of over 1,000 leaders of the largest global enterprises, revealed the following astounding insights:

• Organizations are bombarded by change, and many are struggling to keep up.

• Eight out of ten CEOs sees significant change ahead, and yet the gap between expected change and the ability to manage it has almost tripled since the prior year CEO Study.

• CEOs view more demanding customers not as a threat, but as an opportunity to differentiate. CEOs are spending more to attract and retain increasingly prosperous, informed, and socially aware customers.

• Nearly all CEOs are adapting their business models; two-thirds are implementing extensive innovations.

• More than 40 percent are changing their enterprise models to be more collaborative.

Research into several award-winning companies that are thriving in this down economy reveal that they have been innovating their CPM practices. A few examples: more

To understand what should be included on the Risk Management Agenda in 2010, it helps to look the challenges that were identified in 2009.

I’ve been rereading late-2009 studies and surveys – and paying closest attention to information/technology issues that crop up in studies conducted by services firms and for process issues that appear in studies conducted by software vendors.

I find that this research-gathering tactic tends to identify the least self-serving conclusions … more

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial got me thinking again about the link, or lack thereof, between taxes and happiness (or lack thereof).

The Journal picked up on a rather abstruse piece of research which showed that the subjective measures of happiness so beloved by behavioral scientists (as featured in questions like “How happy do you feel on a scale of 1 to 4?”) are not just vague hogwash, but do actually correlate with objective measures of quality of life, such as environmental conditions, quality of schools, and crime rates.

But what caught the eye of Journal editor Allysia Finley wasn’t the study’s Earth-shattering conclusion that when people say they’re happy, it’s probably because they are actually happy. It was a ranking of states by happiness. Finley stood that list side-by-side with a 2008 Tax Foundation ranking by tax burden, and guess what? “Three of the top five unhappiest states — New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey — have the highest state-local tax burdens. On the other hand, four of the top five happiest states — Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona — are among the states with the lowest state-local tax burdens.” more

Happy Friday. Here are several quick-hit GRC topics that did not make it into my previous posts this week:

XBRL News: International Standards Board Names New Chairman

Video Clip: Richard Chambers, president of The IIA, on IA’s Role in Recession

2009 Ethics Leaders: Most Influential People in Business Ethics ###

Behavior is shaping up to be the killer app of the New Year … and perhaps of our still-young century.

“The ethical fiber of a company does not rest solely in words or codes of conduct, but in the actual behavior observed by suppliers, dealers, customers, and employees,” writes John Deere chairman Bob Lane in a recent column. “At John Deere, this is summed up in a highly visible, frequently referenced shorthand known as ‘the how.’”

Lane’s column revisits the concept of tone at the top and draws this conclusion: Tone at the top, while necessary, is not enough. Actions need to back up words. more