Singapore ups governance
A new study shows recent high-profile corporate scandals and a stricter regulatory environment have led an increasing number of IT heads in Singapore rolling out regulatory compliance programmes, reports Computerworld Singapore.
More than half of the companies surveyed in the republic indicated they have rolled out programmes to comply with international and local regulations, including banking framework Basel II and the Singapore Standard on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Management System - Requirements for the Chemical Industry.
In 2006, only 38% of companies in Singapore said they had put in place such programmes. Conducted by MarketShare on Serena Software's commission, the survey covered nearly 350 CIOs across Asia Pacific, out of which 86 were from Singapore.
Governance boosts returns
Improved governance, risk management and alignment of interests are key to significantly improving investor returns, according to FuturePlus chief investment officer Terry Newson, reports The Financial Standard.
Referring to figures from the International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM) at the University of Toronto, he said the figures showed good governance, risk management and alignment of interests could add anything from 60 to 100 basis points to a fund's returns.
Comparing not-for-profit and retail funds worldwide, he said Canadian and American-defined benefit funds consistently beat mutual funds by 2.66% over 10 years, while Canadian defined benefit funds outperformed mutual funds by 3.8%.Much of this, he said, came down to good corporate governance and risk management.
Survey finds ITIL effective
In a survey of 300 enterprise and mid-market decision-makers, Ovum has identified the aggressive use of consolidation and virtualisation technologies and broad-based implementation of ITIL recommendations as key attributes of highly effective IT organisations, reports Computer Weekly.
Ovum defined highly effective IT organisations as those that are able to fulfil changing business requirements in a timely manner, without disrupting business operations or end-user productivity.
The study's author, Mary Johnston Turner, Ovum Summit VP, said roughly 22% of the total survey sample met these criteria. "These highly effective organisations have laid a lot of groundwork over the past couple of years by implementing virtualisation, SOA and ITIL," said Turner.
Share
