Press Release - Paragon Releases Close Cycle Rankings 2007
BPM International Close Cycle Rankings 2007: UK stagnates, Europe accelerates and the US goes into sharp reverse
Paragon Consulting Group and its BPM International consulting partners compared 530 of the worlds largest companies · UK Top 4 are Carnival, Northern Rock, British Sky Broadcasting and Imperial Tobacco all reporting year end results in 31 days or less · Average times to close for the UK FTSE100 have stagnated at 54 days, unchanged in 4 years · European Countries have continued to accelerate, biggest reductions in Switzerland, the Netherlands and France · US average time to close has increased over the same period, reversing the trend of earlier years
London, October 19th 2007. The most extensive global annual research into year end results announcements and audit timetables of the world´s largest companies has revealed that the UK has stagnated while continental Europe continues to accelerate and the US has gone into sharp reverse.
The UK Top 100 companies have continued to stagnate with no significant change in the overall picture either for the preliminary announcement or audit sign-off metric in the last four years.
David Jones, Director of Paragon Consulting Group, who conducted the research, comments "The stagnation is concerning, but don´t assume it´s all bad news. There has been significant acceleration by some companies in the UK, for example Vedanta, Alliance-Boots, Shire, Intercontinental Hotels, Imperial Tobacco, British Sky Broadcasting and Lloyds TSB have all shaved at least two weeks off their time to close and announce year end results.
Sadly, there are just as many companies who have significantly slowed down."
In continental Europe, the most significant reductions in time to close over the last four years have been in Switzerland (average reduced by 15%), the Netherlands (12%) and France (5%). This includes dramatic reductions at companies such as Adecco, Ahold, Swiss Re, Phillips and LVMH.
In contrast, the USA has suffered a dramatic deterioration, with time to close and announce extending by 10% and audit timetables extending by a huge 40% over the four year period.
Another associated and dramatic US trend is that the number of year end results announcements with audit sign-off has plummeted from 45% to 5% in the last four years. While this trend is nowhere near as dramatic in Europe, despite many large European companies also needing to be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. The UK and Switzerland, for example, have seen small falls in the number of audited results announcements while some European countries, such as Norway and the Netherlands, have actually seen an increase.
"This is one of the great ironies of the introduction of Sarbanes-Oxley", comments Jones. "Tightening of compliance legislation was meant to increase confidence in reported numbers, but the impact in the USA has been to dramatically reduce the number of year end results announcements that have the key confidence factor of being audited." The highly successful Berkshire Hathaway, run by maverick Warren Buffet, is one of the few US companies who have preserved the principle of ensuring year end results, when announced, have audit sign-off.
"At this pace of change, Corporate USA will lose its title as the champion of the fast close to one of our European cousins within a decade. Indeed, there is a strong argument for saying that European Companies such as Novartis, Banco Comercial Português and Danske Bank, who all announce audited results before the end of January, should really be credited as true champions. Meanwhile Corporate UK needs to decide if it wants to emulate the achievements of these European champions ", adds Jones.
Close Cycle Rankings 2007
The Close Cycle Rankings 2007 include numerous rankings for UK, European, US and world-wide major companies, including the four-year trends, regional trends, global industry trends, each with the elapsed days of the result announcement dates and the audit sign-off dates. The rankings are based on published and publicly available information. The date used to measure the elapsed days between financial year end and announcement date is the date of publication of "preliminary results" in the UK or its equivalent in European and US markets. The audit date is taken from the appropriate company filing or published financial statements.
For a copy of the full report and/or specific results for a country or industry please contact:
Sue Shaw (Paragon Consulting Group), Tel +44 207 580 8938, sue.shaw@paragonbpm.com.
About Paragon Consulting Group
Paragon is a leading provider of full life cycle services for Business Performance Management (BPM). Paragon´s services range from defining a Performance Management Roadmap through to project management, implementation and application management services. The depth and focus of Paragon´s BPM application skills are unparalleled and are supplemented with finance, information technology, business and process skills.
www.paragonbpm.com
About BPM International
BPM International is Europe´s only integrated Business Performance Management (BPM) consulting network. BPM is an umbrella term that describes all of the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems needed to measure and manage an organization´s performance. The BPM International members are five leading BPM consultancies with operations in twelve countries and over 1,400 consultants, working with many diverse companies across multiple industries including some of Europe´s largest multinational corporations.
The members of BPM International are: Paragon Consulting Group (UK, Middle East), Centre Consulting (Netherlands), ifb group (Germany, USA, China, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Slovakia, France), ValorGest (Portugal) and Infineo (France). www.bpm-international.com
Contacts:
David H. Jones
Chairman of BPM International
Director of Services, Paragon Consulting Group Ltd.
London
Tel +44 (0) 207 580 8938
Mobile +44 (0) 7711 063722
david.jones@paragonbpm.com
Sue Shaw
Marketing Manager, Paragon Consulting Group Ltd.
London
Tel +44 (0) 207 580 8938
Mobile +44 (0) 7717 321683
sue.shaw@paragonbpm.com