LONDON: The need for companies to meet European accounting standards will present a new challenge for business technologies, according to Oracle, which has compared the changes to the magnitude of the move over to the euro.
Speaking at the company’s AppsWorld conference, senior director Robert Fleming referred to a new study commissioned on behalf of the Working Council For Financial Officers that revealed 60pc of organisations had not yet begun to implement International Accounting Standards (IAC).
New EU rules are intended to improve corporate governance in response to a succession of high profile financial scandals that have plagued the business world. It is now mandatory for all European listed companies to comply with the IAS by 2005. This is expected to impact on ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems in particular.
Companies must standardise processes and data management procedures to adhere to rules regarding the disclosure of corporate information intended to improve consistency and transparency. Oracle sees it as an opportunity to push its vendor strategy of selling consolidation, replacing or adapting multiple ERP systems for a more streamlined infrastructure.
According to the survey, 27pc of respondents were in the process of developing a compliance strategy while 30pc had a plan in place but had not begun implementation.
By Ian Campbell
