What about the one-third who said SOX will have an impact on their IT and supply-chain operations? Degnan indicated that IT operations with existing inadequate compliance procedures and controls could be pressed into improving such procedures by the SOX law. "[We recommend] that enterprises look beyond basic spend compliance to focus on the total cost of ownership of supply relationships," she said.
Aberdeen found that, of the one-third considering upgrading IT operations to comply with SOX, more than 40 percent were considering beefing-up contract-management and supply-chain analytics functions. About 35 percent were looking at upgrading spending analysis and invoice reconciliation and payment. Other upgrades prompted by SOX: supplier performance measurement, employee expense reimbursement automation, inventory management, e-sourcing, and e-procurement.
Degnan and the co-author of the report, Tim Minahan, vice president of Supply Chain Research, tackled the outsourcing phenomenon in the study. "Outsourcing is a little tricky," Degnan said, noting that it's still unclear exactly to what extent outsourcing functions will have to be audited.
Degnan suggested that non-mission critical functions can be easily outsourced without much worry on the part of IT managers. She said, "Turning over non-mission critical supply- management responsibilities to a third-party specialist could be just the ticket."
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