Supply Chain Sarbanes Oxley Supply Chain SarBox Supply Chain SOX Supply Chain Corporate Governance Supply Chain Integrity

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) is focused on the ability of a public company to produce accurate and timely financial statements. Too many people perceive SOX as being just about the end result: the financial statements. SOX is about so very much more: the risks that prevent the creation of the financial statements and the risks to creating late or materially incorrect financial statements.

Fraud and interruptions in the internal & external supply chains are exactly the kinds of risks that can prevent accurate and timely financial statements from being produced, and exactly the kinds of risks that must be proactively identified, analyzed, and dealt with.

As companies continue to work towards SOX compliance they must look beyond just their financial reporting systems and accounting processes to the entire enterprise in regards to risk identification and process improvement, hopefully applying a single compliance framework overall. This is a holistic viewpoint: all operations interconnected, each dependent and reliant upon the success of the other, and each impacted by the failure of another, even if seemingly disconnected. There is a ripple-effect of a failure within a supply chain - problems early on can result in problems, or even disasters, later on, including but not limited to the ability of a company to produce timely and accurate financial statements.

Bringing integrity into the computer systems, business processes, and personnel of a company is (also/really) what SOX is about, because it is only with integrity throughout the organization that reliable output can be produced, whether the output is in the form of consumer goods, materials, services, or information.

This web site highlights the application of the COSO framework - the most widely used for SOX compliance - to the internal & external supply chain operations. We start with an overview of concepts, including the internal & external supply chain, and then delve into how the key aspects of the COSO framework apply to these supply chains. We will look at how to address the risks to an organization and what some of these risks are. And we will discuss integrity in how a company conducts itself.

Private companies and public entities should take heed - while they may not be required to comply with SOX they bear the same level of risks and can be equally shaken by the repercussions. Whether you have shareholders or stakeholders, you have responsibilities!

We are here to help, with a unique combination of skills, qualifications, and experiences you may not find anywhere else. This is how our pieces fit together - for your benefit.