Parson Consulting and APQC to Conduct Internal Controls Benchmark Survey Parson Consulting and APQC to Conduct Internal Controls Benchmark Survey: "Parson Consulting, a leading financial management consultancy, and APQC, an international nonprofit research organization, announced today that they will jointly conduct internal controls benchmarking research as part of the Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative(SM) (OSBC) research. This research will provide context for corporate managers to gauge the effectiveness of their internal controls as compared to their industry peers and other public and private organizations. The strength of internal controls became a central management issue with the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July 2002. Currently, over 4,000 public companies in the U.S. are racing against the deadline for filing the initial certification of the Act's Section 404. This portion of the legislation specifically requires management to certify the effectiveness of a company's internal controls over financial reporting on an annual basis moving forward. 'With the completion of initial compliance with Section 404 of Sarbanes- Oxley approaching, many forward-looking companies are evaluating the overall strengths of their current financial compliance as well as ways to increase the efficiency of ongoing compliance,' said Jerry Walsh, director of service strategy at Parson Consulting. 'This internal controls benchmark research will combine Parson's subject matter expertise gleaned from nearly 200 Sarbanes-Oxley compliance engagements and APQC's experience in effectively benchmarking global organizations to spur performance improvement.' 'The OSBC research allows organizations to improve operations by gaining an objective assessment of how they perform compared to others,' said Lisa Higgins, APQC chief operating officer. 'By participating in this research effort, corporate managers gain competitive information about their internal controls processes and how their organizations can build credible internal controls with reliable reporting mechanisms.' 'Maintaining sound internal controls has quickly become a critical measure for a company to sustain and increase its value. Parson's goal is to provide management with a practical tool to demonstrate the effectiveness of its financial compliance functions and capabilities,' said Toni Hicks, senior vice president of practices at Parson Consulting."  ¶ 08:53