Corporate governance focuses the style and quality of leadership within each entity and across the business. Governance means who has the power to make decisions and who is accountable for them. At their best, governance practices allow an entity to have appropriate decision-making processes and controls in a way that balances the interests of competing stakeholders while maintaining effective management, clear lines of communication and a good relationship with the state.
This post focuses on a particular aspect of managing governance through BlueprintOneWorld: Entity Change Reports. It provides a brief outline of the importance of these reports within a corporate governance framework and demonstrates how the correct software platform can improve the production of reports that fit the requirements of a growing business and satisfy the needs of regulators.
What is included under the category of “corporate governance”?
Governance includes the processes through which a company’s objectives are set and pursued in the context of the market and the regulatory environment. The purpose of having a governance department and/or established best practices for governance, therefore, are twofold: making sure a company achieves its objectives, and keeping shareholders satisfied that their trust in company leadership is well founded. Five of the most common objectives in a sound governance strategy are:
- Establishing boards of directors with a wide range of experience, and evaluating their methods;
- Defining roles, responsibilities and accountabilities from the Board to the C-suite;
- Developing and practicing sound ethical practices and principles;
- Tying compensation of company leaders to performance to create incentives; and
- Making the board responsive to senior management, especially with respect to risk factors.
Most important governance practice includes the processes through which a company’s objectives are set and pursued in the context of the market and the regulatory environment. While large multinational organizations typically have their own governance department dedicated to achieving these goals across all the different entities, smaller firms coordinate committees between company leadership, legal and other departments to establish best practices. One size doesn’t fit all, and the important thing is to establish the correct framework within which the organization can achieve its governance goals.
What is an “entity change report,” and why does it matter in corporate governance?
Automated and accurate reports, among them the Entity Change Report (ECR) featured in Blueprint OneWorld, play an essential role in corporate governance by allowing organizations’ leadership and key personnel to ensure that they are serving the needs of their stakeholders, shareholders, management team and customers effectively and responsibly. In specific terms, an ECR provides a quick, but detailed, overall view of the personnel, legal, ownership and institutional changes that each entity within an organization has been through over a period of time as defined by the needs of the user.
An ECR and similar reports like it can collect the information stored in various places (modules) on an entity’s servers or in cloud storage and collate this information to present it in a detailed, as well as visually dynamic, manner. This renders huge amounts of data understandable and actionable by core leaders. It is of paramount importance to ensure good governance across the organization, as well as ensuring the continuing best practices of governance and making sound governance decisions in the future.
How is an Entity Chang Report produced through software platforms, and what are some of its key features?
Users of a sophisticated platform capable of producing ECRs, most importantly the Blueprint OneWorld platform, have access to a sophisticated, automated engine that renders reports in an instant, dynamic and accessible way. Some of the features provided to users of Blueprint’s ECR module include:
- Reporting on changes to addresses, share certificates.
- Automated process to register company dissolutions and incorporations.
- Effective amendment of company statuses, types and registration numbers.
- Name changes, changes to shares and corporate relationships.
- Data library changes.
- Customization to include specific, customer-selected events.
- Configuration for audit dates as well as event dates.
- Option to use existing default reports or create new ones.
- Assigning and verification of user permissions.
Blueprint’s Change Trigger tool works in tandem with the Change Report module by sending automated emails notifying designated users about changes to their data in short summaries of the entities that were noted as having had a change since the last notification.
All of these features are available to users of Blueprint’s entity management software platform. The Change Trigger can also be customized to link with the Review Manager, Workflow Engine and Change Manager, a feature available to customers of our Enterprise Package.
Staying ahead of the curve
Keeping track of changes, filing appropriate paperwork on time and ensuring that records are up-to-date are key responsibilities of corporate governance. In the absence of a robust software platform such as Blueprint, legal departments and organizations can find themselves struggling with inaccurate, outdated information. Such a situation may put an organization at risk for regulatory mistakes at the least and fines and sanctions at the worst.
With a tool such as Blueprint, your staff members can focus on analyzing data and carrying out their job functions, instead of wasting valuable time reconciling data from a variety of systems. Without the latest information, inaccurate data may be prepared or mistaken assumptions may be made.
In addition, managers, executives and staff members need to trust the reliability, accuracy and timeliness of organizational data. If data is absent, inaccurate or incomplete, no one will trust or use the data that is available.
Organizations cannot make or implement smart decisions without access to the latest information. Decision-making processes are expedited when the right information gets to the right person at the right time.
We hope to be your organization’s entry point into a reliable and effective strategy of entity change management within the broader strategic objectives of effective corporate governance. Please call or email us today to discuss these and other solutions.
