Public companies have 90 days from end of their fiscal year to comply. For those with market capitalization of $75 million or more, this clock starts on Nov. 15, 2004; while all others with less than $75 million market capitalization begin July 15, 2005.

Fast Relief for Sarbanes Oxley Section 404 Compliance

Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires management to confirm effectiveness of their IT and financial controls in an "internal control report", which is contained within annual report (10-K) issued to public. But what exactly is an internal control report, and why is it important to you?

The Section 404 Internal Control Report

First, internal control report must affirm management’s responsibility for controls and procedure, and second, it must contain an assessment of effectiveness of internal controls and procedures for financial reporting. Although both of these issues might at first appear difficult to solve, they are actually not as hard as you would think.

Management’s Responsibility for Controls and Procedures

Affirming management’s responsibility for controls and procedures means more than to simply say management believes in or trusts their system. The affirmation will also need to include a program for a code of ethics for senior financial officers. The program must include prompt disclosures of any changes to your ethics program. So how do you do this?

Business Ethics and Compliance Program

If I Were Coaching You…

If I were coaching you as a business, non-profit or association manager on how to get biggest bang for your public relations dollar, I would sum it up for you this way.

Use fundamental premise of public relations to produce external stakeholder behavior change – kind that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives. Usually, that outside behavior change can be created in financial, marketing, crisis resolution, reputation management and other sectors of public relations discipline.

Thus, you do something positive about behaviors of those outside audiences that MOST affect your organization. And you do so by persuading those important external folks to your way of thinking, then move them to take actions that help your department, division or subsidiary succeed.

The reality is, your public relations effort must involve more than press releases, brochures and special events if you expect to get your money’s worth.

And that’s what fundamental premise of public relations really says when it points out that people act on their own perception of facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action very people whose behaviors affect organization most, public

relations mission is accomplished.

Happily, this kind of public relations approach can deliver results like capital givers or specifying sources looking your way; enhanced activist group relations; expanded feedback channels; new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; community service and sponsorship opportunities; rebounds in showroom visits, membership applications on rise; not to mention new thoughtleader and special event contacts.

You could easily see improved relations with government agencies and legislative bodies; prospects starting to work with you; customers making repeat purchases; promotional contest overtures, and even stronger relationships with educational, labor, financial and healthcare communities.

Still, question remains, who makes blueprint really work? Will your workers be regular public relations staff? Or people sent to you by a parent entity? Or possibly a PR agency crew? Regardless of where they come from, they must be committed to you as senior project manager, to PR blueprint and its implementation, starting with target audience perception monitoring.

Now, simply because a PR person describes him/herself as a public relations specialist doesn’t mean they’ve bought into whole program. Convince yourself that your team members really believe deeply why it’s SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Be certain they buy reality that perceptions almost always lead to behaviors that can help or hurt your unit.