The coming commoditization of processes

Despite the much-ballyhooed increase in outsourcing, most companies are in do-it-yourself mode for the bulk of their processes, in large part because there's no way to compare outside organizations' capabilities with those of internal functions. Given the lack of comparability, it's almost surprising that anyone outsources today. But it's not surprising that cost is by far companies' primary criterion for evaluating outsourcers or that many companies are dissatisfied with their outsourcing relationships. A new world is coming, says the author, and it will lead to dramatic changes in the shape and structure of corporations. A broad set of process standards will soon make it easy to determine whether a business capability can be improved by outsourcing it. Such standards will also help businesses compare service providers and evaluate the costs versus the benefits of outsourcing. Eventually these costs and benefits will be so visible to buyers that outsourced processes will become a commodity, and prices will drop significantly. The low costs and low risk of outsourcing will accelerate the flow of jobs offshore, force companies to reassess their strategies, and change the basis of competition. The speed with which some businesses have already adopted process standards suggests that many previously unscrutinized areas are ripe for change. In the field of technology, for instance, the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute has developed a global standard for software development processes, called the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). For companies that don't have process standards in place, it makes sense for them to create standards by working with customers, competitors, software providers, businesses that processes may be outsourced to, and objective researchers and standard-setters. Setting standards is likely to lead to the improvement of both internal and outsourced processes.     

Will you survive the services revolution?

Of late, offshoring and outsourcing have become political hot buttons. These o words have been conflated to mean that high-paying, white-collar jobs have been handed to well-trained but less expensive workers in India and other locales. The brouhaha over the loss of service jobs, which currently account for over 80% of private-sector employment in the United States, is not merely an American phenomenon. The fact is that service-sector jobs in all developed countries are at risk. Regardless of what the politicians now say, worry focused on offshoring and outsourcing misses the point, the author argues. We are in the middle of a fundamental change, which is that services are being industrialized. Three factors in particular are combining with outsourcing and offshoring to drive that transformation: The first is increasing global competition, where just as with manufactured goods in the recent past, foreign companies are offering more services in the United States, taking market share from U.S. companies. The second is automation: New hardware and software systems that take care of back-room and front-office tasks such as counter operations, security, billing, and order taking are allowing firms to dispense with clerical, accounting, and other staff positions. The third is self-service. Why use a travel agent when you can book your own flight, hotel, and rental car online? As these forces combine to sweep across the service sector, executives of all stripes must start thinking about arming and defending themselves, just as their manufacturing cousins did a generation ago. This will demand proactive and far-reaching changes, including focusing specifically on customer preference, quality, and technological interfaces; rewiring strategy to find new value from existing and unfamiliar sources; de-integrating and radically reassembling operational processes; and restructuring the organization to accommodate new kinds of work and skills.     

A note on asset management and market risk

The textbook view on risk in asset management companies is summarized by Hull (Risk Management and Financial Institutions, p. 372, 2007): “For an asset manager the greatest risk is operational risk.” Using evidence from various panel regression models, we show that asset management revenues carry substantial market risks, a finding that challenges not only academic risk management literature on the predominance of operative risks, but also the current industry practice of not hedging market risks that are systematically built into the revenue-generation process. For asset management companies to return to an annuity model, these risks need to be managed more actively. Shareholders do not want to be exposed to market beta by investing in asset management companies; they want to participate in these companies’ alpha generation and take advantage of their fund-gathering expertise as financial intermediaries.     

Beyond offshoring: assess your company's global potential

In the past few years, companies have become aware that they can slash costs by offshoring: moving jobs to lower-wage locations. But this practice is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how globalization can transform industries, according to research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). The institute's yearlong study suggests that by streamlining their production processes and supply chains globally, rather than just nationally or regionally, companies can lower their costs-as we've seen in the consumer-electronics and PC industries. Companies can save as much as 70% of their total costs through globalization--50% from offshoring, 5% from training and business-task redesign, and 15% from process improvements. But they don't have to stop there. The cost reductions make it possible to lower prices and expand into new markets, attracting whole new classes of customers. To date, however, few businesses have recognized the full scope of performance improvements that globalization makes possible, much less developed sound strategies for capturing those opportunities. In this article, Diana Farrell, director of MGI, offers a step-by-step approach to doing both things. Among her suggestions: Assess where your industry falls along the globalization spectrum, because not all sectors of the economy face the same challenges and opportunities at the same time. Also, pay attention to production, regulatory, and organizational barriers to globalization. If any of these can be changed, size up the cost-saving (and revenue-generating) opportunities that will emerge for your company as a result of those changes. Farrell also defines the five stages of globalization-market entry, product specialization, value chain disaggregation, value chain reengineering, and the creation of new markets-and notes the different levers for cutting costs and creating value that companies can use in each phase.     

Meeting the challenge of corporate entrepreneurship

To be competitive, companies must grow innovative new businesses. Corporate entrepreneurship, however, isn't easy. New ventures face innumerable barriers and seldom mesh smoothly with well-established systems, processes, and cultures. Nonetheless, success requires a balance of old and new organizational traits-and unless companies keep those opposing forces in equilibrium, their new businesses will flounder. The authors describe the challenges companies face when they pursue new businesses, as well as the usual problematic responses to those challenges. Such companies, they say, must perform three balancing acts: Develop strategy by trial and error, which includes narrowing potential choices, learning from small samples, using prototypes to test business models, tracking progress through nonfinancial measures, and knowing how and when to pull the plug on a new venture. Find the best combination of old and new operational processes by staffing new ventures with "mature turks", changing veterans' thinking, knowing which capabilities to develop and which to acquire, and having old and new businesses share responsibility for operating decisions. Strike the right balance of integration and autonomy by assigning both corporate and operating sponsors to new ventures, establishing criteria for handoffs to existing divisions, and using creative organizational structures. The authors provide a detailed look at IBM's Emerging Business Opportunity system, which manages all these balancing acts simultaneously.     

The Effect of Corporate Governance on the Use of Enterprise Risk Management: Evidence From Canada

This article examines the use of enterprise risk management (ERM) by companies in Canada, the characteristics that are associated with the use of ERM, what obstacles companies face in implementing ERM, and what role, if any, corporate governance guidelines have played in the decision to adopt ERM. We obtained our data from the responses to a mail survey sent to Canadian Risk and Insurance Management Society members as well as telephone interviews with 19 of the respondents. The results indicate that 31 percent of the sample had adopted ERM and that reasons for adopting ERM include the influence of the risk manager (61 percent), encouragement from the board of directors (51 percent), and compliance with Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) guidelines (37 percent). The major deterrents to ERM were an organizational structure that discourages ERM and an overall resistance to change. Although only about one‐third of companies indicated that they had adopted an ERM approach, evidence was clear that a larger portion of the sample was moving in that direction, as indicated by what changes they had observed in their companies in the past three years. These include the development of company‐wide guidelines for risk management (45 percent), an increased awareness of nonoperational risks by operational risk management personnel and an increased awareness of operational risks by nonoperational risk management personnel (49 percent), more coordination with different areas responsible for risk management (64 percent), and more involvement and interaction in the decision making of other departments. Contrary to what we expected, there was not a significant difference between firms that are listed on the TSE versus those that are not in terms of the propensity to use ERM. However, the fact that 37 percent of firms indicated that the TSE guidelines were influential in their decision to adopt ERM provides some evidence that the guidelines are influencing companies’ risk management strategies.     

Creating Value at the Intersection of Sourcing,Hedging and Trading

Higher commodity prices, along with higher currency and commodity price volatility, have combined with challenging economic circumstances to make for difficult economics within many industries today. These factors can introduce risk to both top‐line revenue and the cost structure, and wreak havoc on net cash flow and profitability. To the extent that high prices and increasing price volatility continue to be the rule in many global commodity categories, the authors suggest that both sourcing and hedging will soon be (if they are not already) near the top of the strategic agenda for many companies. Many companies now design their hedging programs—and in some cases their sourcing—to achieve the goals of reducing cash flow volatility and optimizing value (as opposed to the more conventional aim of minimizing sourced or manufactured unit cost). And a growing number of corporate managements have expressed interest in an even more systematic approach to risk management. Rising pressure for growth and profitability has led companies with large commodities exposures—both those that are naturally long and those with a natural short—to explore a more strategic role for commodity hedging and trading, as well as the use of innovative risk‐shifting mechanisms for inbound and outbound material flows. This article shows how companies can design their commodity risk management programs to make the greatest use of the expertise and capabilities of four different corporate groups: Purchasing, Treasury, Selling, and Marketing. To that end, the authors presents a five‐step program for creating a company‐wide strategic risk management program:

• ? The first step involves making active design choices about what risks to “own” and what risks to limit based on the company's strategy, core competencies, and relative competitive advantages in owning that risk.
• ? The second step is to establish relevant risk guidelines based on capacity to own risks and, to a lesser extent, risk appetite, with specific hedging targets and benchmarks. This involves defining objectives, priorities, and constraints (for example, protecting liquidity or increasing debt capacity by reducing cash flow volatility).
• ? The third step is to identify and characterize a complete inventory of all exposures—source, size and drivers—and those exposures to be managed. This involves defining, measuring and analyzing all exposures (e.g., commodities, FX, interest rates), with special attention to aggregating, netting, natural offsets, and correlations.
• ? The fourth step involves comparing the suitability of various hedging tools and determining how to incorporate these tools into a systematic program that will achieve stated goals, views, and risk preferences for each exposure.
• ? The fifth and last step is establishing an appropriate risk management operating model, which involves considerations of organizational architecture, management processes, decision rights, information flows, and governance.

     

OUTSIDE UPSIDE: FINDINGS FOCUS THROUGH FINANCE OUTSOURCING

More and more companies are outsourcing aspects of the finance and accounting function to cut costs and increase process efficiency. This article draws on survey results and numerous real-world examples to make the case for outsourcing finance and accounting functions, either outright or through shared service centers. As expected, cost and efficiency gains can be dramatic. But there are also important strategic benefits, including the freedom to focus on core businesses, greater access to specialist knowledge, standardization of processes across business units, and the ability to launch operations quickly without staffing back offices.
Maximizing the benefits of outsourcing requires careful planning and execution. Executives who have successfully navigated the process recommend allowing adequate time to ensure buy-in and consensus building, incorporating the appropriate performance-based incentives, taking steps to build morale during the transition, ensuring proper oversight, and building a strong partnership with the provider. When properly implemented, outsourcing is a powerful ally in the corporate struggle to cut costs—and it can be a vital complement to strategy as well.     

RISK MANAGEMENT FOR MIDDLE MARKET COMPANIES

This article reinforces the message of the one immediately preceding by showing that small to medium‐sized firms have even stronger (non‐tax) motives for hedging risks than their large corporate counterparts. Although middle market companies have traditionally been viewed as less sophisticated than their larger corporate counterparts in the risk management arena, the authors suggest that such companies have become increasingly receptive to new hedging strategies using derivative products. When used appropriately, such products allow companies to stabilize their periodic operating cash flow by eliminating specific sources of volatility such as fluctuations in interest rates, exchange rates, and commodity prices. Smaller companies recognize that a single swing in a budgeted cost can have a catastrophic effect on an entire budget, whereas a larger company can more easily absorb such a cost. Moreover, because the principal owners of mid‐sized firms often have a substantial part of their net worth tied up in the business, they are likely to have a far stronger interest than typical outside shareholders in using risk management to reduce the volatility of corporate profits and firm value. Perhaps most important to owners whose firms rely on debt financing, the greater cash flow stability resulting from active risk management significantly reduces the possibility of financial distress or bankruptcy. In this article, three representatives of Bank of America's risk management practice discuss three different exposures faced by middle market companies—those arising from changes in interest rates, foreign exchange rates, and commodity prices—and show how these risks can be managed with derivatives. Besides shielding companies from financial trouble, risk management is also likely to improve their access to the money and capital markets. By protecting the firm's access to capital, risk management increases the odds that the firm will not be forced to pass up good investment opportunities because of capital constraints or fear of getting into financial difficulty.     

Lean consumption

During the past 20 years, the real price of most consumer goods has fallen worldwide, the variety of goods and the range of sales channels offering them have continued to grow, and product quality has steadily improved. So why is consumption often so frustrating? It doesn't have to be--and shouldn't be--the authors say. They argue that it's time to apply lean thinking to the processes of consumption--to give consumers the full value they want from goods and services with the greatest efficiency and the least pain. Companies may think they save time and money by off-loading work to the consumer but, in fact, the opposite is true. By streamlining their systems for providing goods and services, and by making it easier for customers to buy and use those products and services, a growing number of companies are actually lowering costs while saving everyone time. In the process, these businesses are learning more about their customers, strengthening consumer loyalty, and attracting new customers who are defecting from less user-friendly competitors. The challenge lies with the retailers, service providers, manufacturers, and suppliers that are not used to looking at total cost from the standpoint of the consumer and even less accustomed to working with customers to optimize the consumption process. Lean consumption requires a fundamental shift in the way companies think about the relationship between provision and consumption, and the role their customers play in these processes. It also requires consumers to change the nature of their relationships with the companies they patronize. Lean production has clearly triumphed over similar obstacles in recent years to become the dominant global manufacturing model. Lean consumption, its logical companion, can't be far behind.     

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA ROUNDTABLE ON: Enterprise‐Wide Risk Management

For many years, MBA students were taught that there was no good reason for companies that hedge large currency or commodity price exposures to have lower costs of capital, or trade at higher P/E multiples, than comparable companies that choose not to hedge such financial price risks. Corporate stockholders, just by holding well‐diversified portfolios, were said to neutralize any effects of currency and commodity price risks on corporate values. And corporate efforts to manage such risks were accordingly viewed as redundant, a waste of corporate resources on a function already performed by investors at far lower cost. But as this discussion makes clear, both the theory and the corporate practice of risk management have moved well beyond this perfect markets framework. The academics and practitioners in this roundtable begin by suggesting that the most important reason to hedge financial risks—and risk management's largest potential contribution to firm value—is to ensure a company's ability to carry out its strategic plan and investment policy. As one widely cited example, Merck's use of FX options to hedge the currency risk associated with its overseas revenues is viewed as limiting management's temptation to cut R&D in response to large currency‐related shortfalls in reported earnings. Nevertheless, one of the clear messages of the roundtable is that effective risk management has little to do with earnings management per se, and that companies that view risk management as primarily a tool for smoothing reported earnings have lost sight of its real economic function: maintaining access to low‐cost capital to fund long‐run investment. And a number of the panelists pointed out that a well‐executed risk management policy can be used to increase corporate debt capacity and, in so doing, reduce the cost of capital. Moreover, in making decisions whether to retain or transfer risks, companies should generally be guided by the principle of comparative advantage. If an outside firm or investor is willing to bear a particular risk at a lower price than the cost to the firm of managing that risk internally, then it makes sense to lay off that risk. Along with the greater efficiency and return on capital promised by such an approach, several panelists also pointed to one less tangible benefit of an enterprise‐wide risk management program—a significant improvement in the internal corporate dialogue, leading to a better understanding of all the company's risks and how they are affected by the interactions among its business units.     

Analysing Perceived Downside Risk: the Component Value‐at‐Risk Framework

Multinational companies face increasing risks arising from external risk factors, e.g. exchange rates, interest rates and commodity prices, which they have learned to hedge using derivatives. However, despite increasing disclosure requirements, a firm's net risk profile may not be transparent to shareholders. We develop the ‘Component Value‐at‐Risk (VaR)’ framework for companies to identify the multi‐dimensional downside risk profile as perceived by shareholders. This framework allows for decomposing downside risk into components that are attributable to each of the underlying risk factors. The firm can compare this perceived VaR, including its composition and dynamics, to an internal VaR based on net exposures as it is known to the company. Any differences may lead to surprises at times of earnings announcements and thus constitute a litigation threat to the firm. It may reduce this information asymmetry through targeted communication efforts.     

对西部基层商业银行提高经济增加值的思考

实施以经济增加值为核心的绩效考核,在金融资源匮乏的西部欠发达地区,基层行面临着经营核心目标与业务计划体系的统一、经营效益增长与市场份额增长的关系、产品定价机制问题、相对单一的信贷资产结构与降低经济资本占用、财务核算体系中业务风险体现不充分等两难选择。西部基层行必须从转变经营理念,完善组织结构,构建与完善管理信息系统、业绩评价系统、部门预算等方面创造条件为推行经济增加值奠定基础。在经济资本约束下,西部基层行在经营管理工作中要牢固树立价值最大化的经营理念,平衡好规模与效益的关系,加快经营结构的调整及强化风险管理等。     

Making business sense of the Internet

For managers in large, well-established businesses, the Internet is a tough nut to crack. It is very simple to set up a Web presence and very difficult to create a Web-based business model. Established businesses that over decades have carefully built brands and physical distribution relationships risk damaging all they have created when they pursue commerce through the Net. Still, managers can't avoid the impact of electronic commerce on their businesses. They need to understand the opportunities available to them and recognize how their companies may be vulnerable if rivals seize those opportunities first. Broadly speaking, the Internet presents four distinct types of opportunities. First, it links companies directly to customers, suppliers, and other interested parties. Second, it lets companies bypass other players in an industry's value chain. Third, it is a tool for developing and delivering new products and services to new customers. Fourth, it will enable certain companies to dominate the electronic channel of an entire industry or segment, control access to customers, and set business rules. As he elaborates on these four points, the author gives established companies a systematic way to sort through the risks and rewards of doing business in cyberspace.     

INCORPORATING COUNTRY RISK IN THE VALUATION OF OFFSHORE PROJECTS

Offshore projects, especially those in emerging economies, are generally viewed as more risky, and thus as contributing less to shareholder value, than otherwise comparable domestic investments. Emerging economies are typically more volatile than the economies of industrialized countries. They also present a greater array of risks that are (perceived as being) primarily of a downside nature, such as currency inconvertibility, expropriation, civil unrest, and general institutional instability. Further, because such risks are relatively unfamiliar to the investing companies, the companies are likely to make costly errors in early years and to require more time to bring cash flows and rates of return to acceptable steady-state levels. To reflect these higher risks and greater unfamiliarity, many companies include an extra premium in the discount rate they apply to offshore and, particularly, emerging-market projects. However, the basis for these discount rate adjustments is often arbitrary. Such adjustments do not properly reflect objective information available about either the nature of these risks, or about the ability of management to manage them. Nor do they take into account the reality that the risks stemming from unfamiliarity fall over time as the firm progresses along the learning curve. As a result, companies often “over discount” project cash flows in compensating for these risks, and thus unduly penalize offshore projects. More important, adjusting for country risk using arbitrary adjustments to the discount rate fails to focus management's attention on strategic and financial actions can be taken to reduce risk—notably, actions capable of transferring some of the company's exposures to specific risks to different parties with comparative advantages in bearing those risks. This paper outlines a four-step procedure for assessing overseas risks that integrates these various aspects:

• ? Classify risks in terms of various stakeholders' comparative advantage in risk-taking based on their: (a) existing portfolio of assets; (b) access to information; and (c) capabilities for reducing risk.
• ? Allocate risk through project structuring and financial engineering to exploitthese comparative advantages.
• ? Adjust resulting cash flows (relative to their most-likely levels) for (a) the impact of “asymmetric” risks; (b) learning effects; and (c) potential competitive options and/or barriers to entry resulting from comparative advantage in dealing with risks.
• ? Discount resulting expected cash flows at a risk-adjusted discount rate that reflects the covariance of the cash flows with the benchmark portfolio.

     

Which form of hedging matters — Operational or financial? Evidence from the US oil and gas sector

We examine the extent and impact of operational and financial hedging on commodity price risk in US oil and gas companies. We find significant exposure to underlying commodity movements. Using a combination of hand collected and publicly available data we examine the impact of hedging strategies. We find no evidence that operational hedging, defined here as multinationality, is effective. In contrast, we find that financial hedging is significant and impactful. Sub-period analysis shows that the effectiveness of financial hedging diminishes when commodity price volatility is high.     

Reputation and its risks

Regulators, industry groups, consultants, and individual companies have developed elaborate guidelines over the years for assessing and managing risks in a wide range of areas, from commodity prices to natural disasters. Yet they have all but ignored reputational risk, mostly because they aren't sure how to define or measure it. That's a big problem, say the authors. Because so much market value comes from hard-to-assess intangible assets like brand equity and intellectual capital, organizations are especially vulnerable to anything that damages their reputations. Moreover, companies with strong positive reputations attract better talent and are perceived as providing more value in their products and services, which often allows them to charge a premium. Their customers are more loyal and buy broader ranges of products and services. Since the market believes that such companies will deliver sustained earnings and future growth, they have higher price-earnings multiples and market values and lower costs of capital. Most companies, however, do an inadequate job of managing their reputations in general and the risks to their reputations in particular. They tend to focus their energies on handling the threats to their reputations that have already surfaced. That is not risk management; it is crisis management--a reactive approach aimed at limiting the damage.The authors provide a framework for actively managing reputational risk. They introduce three factors (the reputation-reality gap, changing beliefs and expectations, and weak internal coordination) that affect the level of such risks and then explore several ways to sufficiently quantify and control those factors. The process outlined in this article will help managers do a better job of assessing existing and potential threats to their companies' reputations and deciding whether to accept a particular risk or take actions to avoid or mitigate it.     

Large UK Companies and Derivatives

Derivative securities have transformed the way treasurers view financial price risk and have been used to hedge risks that were previously left open. In this paper, we present the results of surveys of treasurers of large UK companies to questions about their derivative use. We examine the extent of derivative use, the reasons for their use, the perceived risks associated with derivatives, what sort of controls are in place to monitor the use of derivatives, and, finally, reporting practices which govern the disclosure of derivative practices. Results of the surveys indicate widespread use of derivatives like swaps, forwards and options. The primary reasons for their use are to manage interest rate and currency risk. There is a rather limited, but growing, use of derivatives to manage commodity and equity risk. Treasurers report that they are somewhat cautious about more exotic types of derivatives, primarily because of concern over the illiquidity of the underlying market for these derivatives. Interestingly, treasurers revealed that they view control and the nature of their counterparty as the main risks in using derivatives. Finally, the use of derivatives is accompanied by significant control mechanisms inside companies, and treasurers are using sophisticated procedures to quantify their derivative exposures before they are reported at board level.     

金融服务外包的风险控制及其监管研究

金融服务外包是金融领域的新兴业务，从国际范围看，金融服务外包行业正处于行业生命周期的高速成长期，尤其是近年来发展迅猛；目前我国金融业务外包已经开始起步并呈现不断发展的趋势。金融服务外包有利于强化金融机构的核心竞争力、规避经营风险和降低经营成本；但也会带来外包失败、成本增加、收益分配的不确定性、战略泄漏等风险。金融机构自身要加强内部控制防范风险，金融监管部门也应加强监管，要合理限定金融服务外包的范围、规范监管机构的权限与监管程序、规范金融机构选择外包商的基本程序和机制、要求金融机构和外包商建立应急机制，并适度从严监管跨国金融服务外包。