Spreadsheet Woes – Limited Features For Easy Adoption of a Control Framework

Like it or not, regulations are here to stay and for a company to comply with them, its IT and financial systems will have to be equipped with a suitable control framework. One common stumbling block to such an implementation is a company?s over-reliance on spreadsheets.

Why is it so difficult to adopt controls for a system that’s reliant on spreadsheets? To understand this, let’s pinpoint some of the strongest, most powerful attributes of these User Developed Applications (UDA).

By nature, spreadsheets are the epitome of simplicity: easy to develop, easily accessible and easily altered. All computers in your workplace will most likely have them and everyone in your organization may be sharing them, making their own versions, and storing them in personal folders.

Sad to say though, these strengths are also control weaknesses and constitute the very reasons why spreadsheets require effective risk management.

Easy to develop. Being easy to develop, most spreadsheet systems are created by non-IT users who have limited knowledge on best control practices. Being constantly under time pressure, these ?developers? may also relegate documentation, security, and data verification to the back burner in favour of coming up with a timely report.

Easy to access. Information in a spreadsheet can be opened by practically anyone within the organization?s network. Who accessed what? And when? If anything goes wrong, it would be difficult to identify the culprit, and the failure to pinpoint responsibility for erroneous data could lead to bigger, more costly mistakes.

Easy to alter. Lastly, if the information is easy to access, then it can also be easily altered, consequently making reports more prone to both accidental errors and fraudulent modifications.

The rise of multimillion dollar scandals due to accidental and intentional spreadsheet errors have prompted regulatory bodies to publish guidelines for mitigating spreadsheet-associated risks. These controls include:

  • Change control
  • Version control
  • Access control
  • Input
  • Security and data integrity
  • Documentation
  • Development life cycle
  • Backup and archiving
  • Logic inspection/Testing
  • Segregation of duties/roles, and procedures
  • Analytics

In theory, these controls should be able to bring down risks considerably. However, because of the inherent nature of spreadsheets, such controls are rarely implemented effectively in the real world.

Take for example Security and Data Integrity. One of the most common causes of spreadsheet error is due to ?hardwiring?. This happens when values are inadvertently entered into a formula cell, naturally changing the logic of the spreadsheet.

As a way of control, cell locking can be applied on the formula cells to prevent users without the proper authority from making any changes. However, when reporting deadlines approach drawing spreadsheets to the forefront of data processing, more people are given access rights to the locked cells. Ironically, it is during these crunch times, when errors are most likely to happen.

Because the built-in features of a spreadsheet support none of the controls mentioned above, some companies are tempted to purchase control-enabling programs for spreadsheets just to continue using them for financial reporting. But although these programs can integrate the required controls, you?d still be interacting with the same complex and outdated interface: the spreadsheets.

Thus, these band-aid solutions may not suffice because the root cause of these problems are the spreadsheets themselves.

Learn more about our server application solutions and discover a better way to implement controls.

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Spreadsheet Woes – Limited features for easy adoption of a control framework


Spreadsheet woes – Burden in SOX Compliance and other Regulations


Spreadsheet Risk Issues


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Why Spreadsheets can send the pillars of Solvency II crashing down

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5 Numbers showing why the Time to Invest in eCommerce in the UK is Now

A decade or two ago, you might have already had the urge to invest in eCommerce. But astute as you are, you must have decided to wait for the right time and perhaps the right place to do it. That time has come. And the right place to do it? Try the United Kingdom.

Here’s why:

1. ?100 billion worth to the UK economy

A report conducted by US-based BCG (Boston Consulting Group) showed that Internet-based business in the UK reached ?100 billion in 2009. That translated to 7.2% of the country’s GDP that year, making it bigger than industries like construction, education, and health & social work, and even slightly bigger than agriculture, hotels & restaurants, and mining, combined. Click here to see the comparison shown as a graph.

?100 billion?is certainly huge, but?the market potential of the Internet in UK is even made more evident if you also look at the numbers based on amount spent per capita…

2. # 1 in per capita spending

According to IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group), “the UK’s per capita spend of ?1333 (?1108) per annum” is number one in the world. This shows that people from the United Kingdom are more willing to buy goods from the Internet than other people on the planet. And this alone should tell you why UK is the best place for e-commerce.

But while you’re still pondering whether now is really the best time to invest, bear in mind that competitors who have gone to the Internet before you are already thinking of expanding …

3. 1.5 million workers in Internet retailing by 2015

Last year (2011), the number of people employed in UK e-businesses was about 730,000. While conducting its second annual e-Jobs index in 2011, IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) found out that it was largely due to a rise in employment in 63% of e-businesses. The study also showed that 60% of e-businesses were also planning to beef up their employees within a year’s time.

While other sectors are shrinking their ?workforce, businesses on the Internet are growing theirs. Were they just speculating? Perhaps not…

4. 50% of parsels during 2016 pre-Christmas peak will come from e-commerce

Last year (2011), parcels coming from e-commerce accounted for 37% of all items sent through UK couriers during the November-December stretch. That volume from e-commerce was 15% higher than the previous year. This remarkable climb, which was reported by Global Freight Solutions (GFS), shows the growing confidence of customers when it comes to buying products online.

If this rate continues, items from e-commerce will easily comprise 50% of parcels by 2016. Chances this rate will continue? Let’s go to number 5 and you be the judge.

5. 66% of all adults made online purchases in 2011

A statistical bulletin published by the ?Office for National Statistics revealed that 32 million people made online purchases in 2011. That actually comprises 66% of all adults in the UK. Significant as that may seem, what is really striking is that that figure used to be 62% in 2010. So again, this proves that the number of people who buy products and services online is steadily growing.

If you really think about it, these statistics should not be surprising. The smartphone is now practically the default mobile device of anyone who owns a mobile phone. And then of course there are laptops and tablets.

With these devices on hand, coupled with the ever growing number of WiFi hotspots and telecommunications bandwidth, gaining access to the Web has never been easier.?It can be done practically anytime, anywhere.

This makes it so easy for people to search for products, compare competing brands, and eventually make a purchase from home, the office, on the terminal, or on the train.

Related post:

Integrated e-commerce ? The right way to do extend your business online

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Sources of Carbon Emissions

Exchange of carbon dioxide among the atmosphere, land surface and oceans is performed by humans, animals, plants and even microorganisms. With this, they are the ones responsible for both producing and absorbing carbon in the environment. Nature?s cycle of CO2 emission and removal was once balanced, however, the Industrial Revolution began and the carbon cycle started to go wrong. The fact is that human activities substantially contributed to the addition of CO2 in the atmosphere.

According to statistics gathered by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, carbon dioxide comprises 82% of UK?s greenhouse gas emissions in 2012. This makes carbon dioxide the main greenhouse gas contributing to the pollution and subsequent climate change in UK.

Types of Carbon Emissions

There are two types of carbon emissions ? direct and indirect. It is easier to measure the direct emissions of carbon dioxide, which includes the electricity and gas people use in their homes, the petrol burned in cars, distance of flights taken and other carbon emissions people are personally responsible for. Various tools are already available to measure direct emissions each day.

Indirect emissions, on the other hand, include the processes involved in manufacturing food and products and transporting them to users? doors. It is a bit difficult to accurately measure the amount of indirect emission.

Sources of Carbon Emissions

The sources of carbon emissions refer to the sectors of end-users that directly emit them. They include the energy, transport, business, residential, agriculture, waste management, industrial processes and public sectors. Let’s learn how these sources contribute carbon emissions to the environment.

Energy Supply

The power stations that burn coal, oil or gas to generate electricity hold the largest portion of the total carbon emissions. The carbon dioxide is emitted from boilers at the bottom of the chimney. The electricity, produced from the fossil fuel combustion, emits carbon as it is supplied to homes, commercial establishments and other energy users.

Transport

The second largest carbon-emitting source is the transport sector. This results from the fuels burned in diesel and petrol to propel cars, railways, shipping vehicles, aircraft support vehicles and aviation, transporting people and products from one place to another. The longer the distance travelled, the more fuel is used and the more carbon is emitted.

Business

This comprises carbon emissions from combustion in the industrial and commercial sectors, off-road machinery, air conditioning and refrigeration.

Residential

Heating houses and using electricity in the house, produce carbon dioxide. The same holds true to cooking and using garden machinery at home.

Agriculture

The agricultural sector also produces carbon dioxide from soils, livestock, immovable combustion sources and other machinery associated with agricultural activities.

Waste Management

Disposing of wastes to landfill sites, burning them and treating waste water also emit carbon dioxide and contributes to global warming.

Industrial Processes

The factories that manufacture and process products and food also release CO2 , especially those factories that manufacture steel and iron.

Public

Public sector buildings that generate power from fuel combustion also add to the list of carbon emission sources, from heating to other public energy needs.

Everybody needs energy and people burn fossil fuels to create it. Knowing how our energy use affects the environment, as a whole, enables us to take a step ahead towards achieving better climate.

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SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

About a quarter of the world’s population use the Internet. That’s approximately 1.7 billion people. How many will come to your site the moment it launches? Zero.

It will take some time before the search engines are able to index your site and allow the possibility of driving some visitor traffic there. But even when your site does get indexed, that’s no assurance people will even have the chance of finding it.

So unless you apply SEO, your chances of improving those traffic numbers from zilch would nearly be zilch too. Traffic is a fundamental prerequisite in eCommerce. Before any store, virtual or otherwise, can ever hope to make a sale, the first step is to get noticed by the potential customer.

Our SEO specialists can drive your pages to the top of search results so that potential customers can see results leading to your site first.

Depending on the product or service you’re offering, getting to be ranked high on the search engines can be extremely labour-intensive. Basically, it’s the kind of job you’d rather not keep in-house but its the kind of job our team would be happy to take charge on.

Different products and services have different SEO requirements. We won’t recommend an SEO package if we think it will only translate to unnecessary spending.

These are the essentials of our SEO packages:

  • Targeted keywords and keyphrases. We’ll conduct extensive research on your product line and your product competitors to get hold of the best targeted keywords and keyphrases. If your competitors missed any important keyphrases, we’ll find those as well.
  • Strategically planted backlinks. We’ll concentrate our backlinking efforts on relevant backlinks to achieve top search engine rankings. As an added bonus, relevant backlinks drive in traffic that really matter as this is made up of visitors with the highest potential of turning into buyers.
  • On-site SEO. Certain issues arising from the mere makeup of most eCommerce websites are making on-site SEO tweaking more challenging. In fact, not all SEO consultants cater to these specific problems. Our specialists, on the other hand, pay special attention to issues regarding pagination resulting in keyword cannibalisation, product pages, landing page optimisation and the like.
  • Selection of SEO packages. While you’re still starting out, you may want to try our basic packages first. Then once you see traffic pouring in and revenues begin to build up, you can up the ante by upgrading to our premium packages.

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