Open communications during IFRS transition process

In 2011, Canada will adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) when Canadian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for publicly-accountable enterprises migrate to IFRS. Companies need to tailor communications to stakeholders about the particular challenges that IFRS conversion presents. The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) is providing guidance on how to provide useful information to investors in the period leading up to the changeover through a new publication titled: Pre-2011 Communications About IFRS Conversion.

Saratoga human capital effectiveness survey

The most successful organizations manage their human capital as a strategic asset by aligning the workforce with business objectives and using measurement to drive decisions, monitor performance and improve results. Each year, Saratoga, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) human capital measurement service offering, conducts its annual human capital effectiveness survey that reveals hundreds of metrics and thousands of unique benchmarks focused on productivity, turnover, staffing, labor cost, training, and HR cost and structure. This extensive report contains results from over 300 organizations throughout the United States, and provides organizations with the ability to make evidence-based decisions. A majority of participating organizations are in the Fortune 1000. (Read the executive summary or Listen to the Podcast.)

PwC's Technology Forecast, Fall 2008

Do more with less. Be more innovative. Manage continuous change. Anticipate market shifts. Bias investment toward differentiation. Standardize wherever possible to reduce costs. Deliver value from acquisitions. Make information a strategic weapon. Create a sustainable infrastructure. Be more agile. In scores of conversations with business and technology executives, it has become evident that many apparently unrelated initiatives share a common challenge: to manage them in an era of continuous change without tearing the organization apart by lurching from one initiative or crisis to the next. An evolving methodology can help anticipate market changes and assess their meaning for the enterprise as a whole before deciding whether an agile response is necessary. This emerging approach is a method for proceeding with investments with agility when they make sense and without causing more harm than the intended good. This approach fuses two key models and a growing trend which are discussed in PwC's Technology Forecast.

IASB Welcomes Move to IFRS in North America

Sir David Tweedie, Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), welcomes recent actions by authorities in Canada, the United States and Mexico regarding the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). (Read the IASB Press Release.)

SEC Proposes Roadmap for Transition to IFRS

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has released its long-awaited roadmap for US public companies to make the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The SEC set a longer-than-expected 90-day comment period for the proposal, which puts forth milestones that, if met, could lead to the required use of IFRS by US issuers in 2014. The SEC is also seeking comment on two alternative proposals under which US issuers that elect to use IFRS would disclose US GAAP information. (Read a commentary on the proposals or obtain the SEC Roadmap.)

Fair Value: Clarifying the Issues

Drastic events in the credit markets have converted what used to be a technical issue in accounting - fair value - into a public debate and a point of bitter contention in the business community. A White Paper by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) summarizes the key points of the debate and offers a balanced perspective on the issues. The Paper weighs the significant benefits and limitations of reporting fair value; both have been forcefully evident in the past year and continue to emerge. (Read the PwC Paper on Fair Value: Clarifying the Issues.)

PwC examples of good practice in corporate reporting

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) maintains an online catalogue of examples of good practice in corporate reporting. Each example is accompanied by an introduction explaining why the example has been chosen, as well as a detailed commentary. The information is provided free of charge, following a simple registration procedure. Examples can be searched by industry, company name, country and category. They can also be downloaded and printed in PDF format. (Visit the PwC Corporate Reporting Website.)

Canada’s CAs providing assistance to help directors deal with financial crunch

The Chartered Accountants of Canada have released a new publication aimed at helping corporate directors understand the business implications of the global financial turmoil. The publication, which is titled Director Alert: The Global Financial Meltdown – Questions for Directors to Ask, highlights key topics for directors to consider to better understand their company's exposure and their own obligations. There are four categories of questions:
Uncertainty, Risk and Business Strategy; Financial Condition and Liquidity; Reporting and Disclosure; and Leadership and Corporate Governance.

IR Global Rankings

The IR Global Rankings is a comprehensive ranking system for IR website, corporate governance practices and financial disclosure procedures. Based on extensive proprietary research of public companies and investors, the methodology is detailed, transparent and completely accessible to all participants. The IR Global Rankings, supported by KPMG, Demarest & Almeida, Corporate Asia Network and Arnold & Porter, is a unique external review of any company’s communication process with analysts and investors worldwide.

KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2008

The "KPMG International Survey on Corporate Responsibility Reporting" has recently been published. According to the survey, 80% of the Global Fortune 250 now release corporate responsibility information in stand alone reports or integrated with annual financial reports, up from 50 percent in the three years since KPMG last conducted its survey in 2005. In addition to the Global Fortune 250, the sample also included the 100 largest companies by revenue in 22 countries. National level companies trail the Global 250 with an average of 45% issuing reports, but numbers vary widely from country to country. For example less than 20% of large companies in Mexico and Czech Republic issue reports, but well over 90% of companies in Japan and the United Kingdom do so.