Bearingpoint Videos
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Most organizations have implemented programs to evaluate third parties that receive their sensitive data. What risks were these programs designed to address, and how well have these programs performed to date?

Join BearingPoint Director Matthew O Mara to explore speed to market and why it’s such a hot topic in today’s insurance industry. With many clients not fully understanding what it is and why it is needed, speed to market, as the term implies, refers to a company’s ability to develop and introduce products to the market quickly. For a company to capture the potential offered by speed to market as a competitive capability, they must be aware of the new and updated products being offered in the marketplace. This means that you can not only respond to the demands, you need to anticipate them by continually developing and testing new products and services. A company’s ability to develop and offer new products quickly is the key to satisfying the needs and demands of the marketplace. Speed to market can deliver improved competitive capability to a company if it is done correctly. Involving the right people, systems and processes to identify where, what and how to change is critical. Although it is not easy or necessarily fast to do, improving speed to market at a company can generate great benefits to its bottom line, market image and competitive abilities. Tags: BearingPoint, Matthew O Mara, insurance, Speed to market

Matchmaking has never been easy. People who seem meant for each other in theory often turn out to be incompatible when they actually get together. The same dilemma people face when they’re looking for romance may also be true for steel companies.

No color has more cachet these days than green in its new role as the symbol of the environmental movement. But lest we forget, it’s still the color of money. And in the hotel industry, green will soon come to symbolize both at the same time.

Join BearingPoint Managing Director Terence Oi, and ColdSpark Founder and CTO Scott Brown in this podcast as they explore ColdSpark s solution suite and how it has helped build a solid relationship between both organizations. BearingPoint and ColdSpark have joined together to provide offerings designed to help clients generate revenue, increase cost-effectiveness, manage regulatory compliance, integrate information and transition to next-generation technology. ColdSpark helps the world s most demanding companies harness the power of email to create business value, while ensuring security, compliance, performance and management for email networks and systems. As the leading provider of enterprise solutions and platforms for email processes and delivery, ColdSpark helps BearingPoint assist its clients with saving money, making money and addressing security concerns, amongst others. By utilizing a holistic approach, ColdSpark offers great scalability and flexibility around the client s current infrastructure. The relationship between BearingPoint and ColdSpark provides clients with solutions that drive revenue, strengthen relationships with customers and ensure compliance issues are addressed, improving security and optimizing performance while growing revenue and cutting costs significantly. Tags: BearingPoint, Terence Oi, ColdSpark, Scott Brown

In this podcast, enterprise architecture expert Steven Kahn discusses some of the findings that went into the recently published, An Implementor s Guide to Service Oriented Architecture - Getting it Right, produced by BearingPoint, Composite Software and other contributors. The bottom line: successful implementation of an SOA system is about more than technology. As Kahn explains, challenges in understanding the technology, to developing an IT funding model that will enable it to serve across the enterprise are all critical to success. There are many common implementation pitfalls, but Kahn explains how the process can be made simpler, and hopes to encourage more people to deploy their own SOA. Steven Kahn is a senior manager in BearingPoint s commercial services business systems integration practice where he works to define and deliver value-driven SOA and BPM solutions. He specializes in enterprise architectures with specific emphasis on enterprise integration and business process management. Tags: Steven Kahn, Service Oriented Architecture, BearingPoint

Companies today face significant talent challenges that barely existed a few years ago. What are these challenges, and what are companies doing to address them effectively?

Recent headlines report an alarming story: “U.S. Army Issues Stop Work Order on Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter Program,” “Top Computer Manufacturer Dogged by Production Delays,” “Costly Flaws Found in Navy’s Top Jet.”

Join BearingPoint Senior Manager John Gill as he explores Information Management, but more specifically, the importance of BI and Performance Management. Information Management is focused on identifying the best way to get information to the proper channels. In many instances, this involves looking at three keys areas; analytics, sharing and storage. Analytics focuses on deciding who should get what type of information to make better decisions that will impact the company s performance. Sharing determines how to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of a solution and storage is needed to decide what to do with the information once it s received. These three areas are the main focus of our IM practice and what constitutes success for our clients. Many businesses are looking for Business Intelligence and Performance Management (BI/PM) which goes beyond traditional management reporting. Our BI/PM solution enables an information-based business strategy and assists with charting a path to financial services success. BI, which encompasses the analysis, presentation and delivery of information to business users, is a significant tool in assisting with the reduction of overall spending and making better business decisions. BearingPoint s new thinking has focused its attention on providing IM solutions around credit crisis risk, management reporting and a better understanding of data. We are dedicated to providing our clients with information in a faster fashion to enable our clients to have better information management. With our wide selection of offerings, this is an exciting time for IM. Tags: BearingPoint, John Gill, Information Management, BI, Performance Management, Analytics, IM, Business Intelligence, Performance Management

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” While Albert Einstein was referring to physics when he made this statement, his words are just as applicable to business.

We all know how important it is to think outside the box, but many companies still need to learn how to think outside of 10 or 15 boxes. When it comes to designing an effective organizational strategy, companies frequently fall victim to boxology, where instead of clearly defining the capabilities, structure and roles required to execute business strategy, they settle for simply redrawing their organizational charts.

Join BearingPoint senior manager Marianne Lamkin as she explores the role of a mortgage servicer and why the role is so important. Typically, a mortgage servicer collects payments from the borrowers, and above all, manages the day-to-day relationship. When a borrower cannot commit to a payment schedule or has come into an unfortunate time, the mortgage servicer is the one who will work out a plan and determine the best course of action for all parties. With a large number of borrowers being threatened with the recent credit crisis, there is a lot at stake. Many individuals are at risk of losing their home and/or business and the servicer is stepping in to help remedy the situation. With assistance comes some monitoring on the borrowers end. Anyone who has contact with a servicer needs to be concerned with how they are managing the relationship. Luckily, there are resources such as data reports that the servicer is required to supply. It s essential that the stakeholders talk to the servicers, those that are managing the operations and the default managers. The most important thing is that a stakeholder needs to be truly sure that they understand the risks and how they can manage those risks and take proper precautions. If they don t have the expertise, they need to find someone who does. That s where BearingPoint comes in. We can assist the client with outlining the risks and determining how well their servicer is managing their assets. Our new thinking in this space can help ensure our clients are meeting their legal and market obligations, as well as profiting financially in this ever changing world. Tags: BearingPoint, Marianne Lamkin

What company could do without spreadsheets? After all, they’re ubiquitous, efficient and cost effective. For executives they can provide an instant and concise snapshot of their organization that often drives critical business decisions. But that snapshot may be out of focus.

Join BearingPoint senior manager Larry Taylor as he explores the importance of managing reputational risk. Reputational risk is a term that is typically used to identify the result of something that changes the perspective of a company. A prime example is the recent credit crisis. Even companies that were not directly affected by it, but had credit in their business description, were quickly identified as a threat. Many vendors stopped their association with them and clients ran to competitors for guidance. Now more than ever, it s extremely important to safeguard a company s reputation. The reputation is currently serving as the sole source of economic value of a firm. In a situation where the reputation being portrayed is incorrect, a company must have the ability to quickly respond to such criticism, prior to any real damage being done. The key to preventing such a travesty is to understand the sources of your risk and determine what the potential impacts would be. There are also many ways to determine how a company is currently perceived, such as its stock price, customer acquisition and customer patterns. These are clear indications of your favorability and a clear indicator if changes need to be made. Key executives need to know how their company is being displayed in the marketplace and how they are being evaluated through a stakeholder prism. Many times, a company is not aware of its perception in the marketplace until it s too late. With all the new technology available, it s easier than ever to monitor your company s reputation. It s the responsibility of the executives to have a clear message relayed to their employees so that everyone assembles under one culture. It is only then that people will band together to ensure the company s perception remains positive and outs anyone who strays from what has been clearly outlined as the company s standards. Tags: BearingPoint, Larry Taylor

Not only is the adoption of a single accounting language desirable in an era of increasing globalization, but it carries many benefits as well — including reduced complexity, greater transparency and improved efficiency in financial reporting.

Putting a value on a target company’s assets can be tricky at best, but it’s especially so in politically unstable countries with shaky economies and unpredictable legal systems.

Join BearingPoint Senior Manager Laurent Mandorla as he explores the importance of virtual desktops and why they are being hailed as the wave of the future. Over the last few years, there has been a lot of buzz around virtualization, although it s only recently that organizations have begun to embrace it. Statistics show that by the year 2011 there will be 700 million users. This is a bold prediction that has many people investing heavily in this solution as a new offering for their clients. A virtual desktop is one where all computing happens remotely. It contains a very simple screen that allows you to replace the heavy workstations that are currently being used by the majority of companies. Virtual desktops provide a virtual space, in which the user can place all their application software. The most compelling argument that vendors use to convince organizations to buy in to this solution is the fact that all the data and applications are in one secure location. Someone can still manage all of their employee s desktops, even when the computer is off. The recent trend has been for companies to move to Windows Vista. This allows an organization to keep the same hardware, which is a viable solution to cut costs. So, why are some people hesitant to invest in this? The answer seems to be that virtual desktops are not a one size fits all solution - but there are ways for easy implementation, which is where BearingPoint comes in. We assist with the pain points or doubts that an organizations goes through. It is our goal to assist with the development of a strategic roadmap that brings the client all the way through the deployment. We bring our expertise to the table to ensure the transition is smooth and that our clients are on their way to cost-saving success. Tags: BearingPoint, Laurent Mandorla, virtual desktops, virtualization

Generation Y members want to do their banking in much the same way that they do comparison shopping at the mall. To attract them as customers, banks will have to offer more options, services and products, and make them available via a multitude of channels such as cell phones, interactive television and yes, even virtual world sites — in addition to online banking and the traditional bank branch.

In this podcast, join BearingPoint Senior Manager Andy Sanderson as he explores rogue trading and what can be done to stop it. Rogue trading is when an employee makes unauthorized trades on behalf of their company, often resulting in the loss of enormous amounts of money for that organization. This activity is often times hard to identify because the perpetrator is a legitimate employee and his actions will sometimes go unnoticed. Rogue Trading is actually very common, but it only hits the press when the company is well known and people come forward to announce the company s losses. The question that is most asked is, How can we prevent it? While rogue trading cannot be prevented, one can change the environment so that there is less incentive to engage in this act. In most organizations today, there is enough incentive to continue this type of trading because the proper controls have not been put into effect. An organization needs to be aware of activities that are outside of the norm and be knowledgeable of significant gains and losses. With the proper controls, a rogue trader can be identified and stopped before irreparable damage has occurred. With most laws, there are ways to police them. We need to do this with trading, too. The controls need to be visible so that employees know that people are looking out for this type of behavior, but not too visible where an employee can identify ways to get around it. The most important element of policing this type of behavior is data mining. With the right technology, data mining can identify any odd behavior. The investment in the proper technology will allow companies to identify the culprits once they have engaged in unlawful behavior and before the company s image has been tainted. Tags: data mining, Andy Sanderson, BearingPoint, Rogue Traders

If the U.S. health care system is in crisis — and just try to find someone who says it isn’t — and it’s going to be fixed, any solution will have to take into account the attitudes and behavior of the people whom the system is supposed to serve in the first place.

Join BearingPoint senior manager Bill Stotzer in exploring the challenges facing the sourcing and procurement organizations today. Many financial institutions have identified procurement cost savings and made an attempt at cost reduction. Some have achieved greater success than others. We see two primary factors contributing to the low success rate in cost reduction. First, due to favorable market conditions in the Financial Services sector over the past five years, minimal attention was paid to cost effective Sourcing and Procurement. Second, the financial services industry has also experienced a significant amount of merger acquisition activity over the last 5 years. Although a fair amount of integration activities have occurred, the combination of these institutions has created another set of challenges. Sourcing and procurement cost takeout is very easy to understand at the strategic level. One needs to identify where an organization can consolidate spend, use enterprise leverage to negotiate lower unit cost, and then direct the users to purchase from the new enterprise contract. However, in a large global institution, with a fair degree of autonomy in the business units, these tasks can be very difficult to implement. Many companies use leading practices in isolated pockets throughout the enterprise. We look at Sourcing and Procurement across 11 different attributes using an enterprise maturity model to help clients understand their position relative to leading industry practices, determine the maturity level goals of the client and develop a multi-year roadmap to achieve those goals. For those who want to reduce cost and improved performance, there is some solid advice that we can offer. Sourcing and procurement cost takeout is very easy to understand at the strategic level, but very difficult to implement in a large global institution, with a fair degree of autonomy in the business. BearingPoint informs their clients to focus on four key areas, if they want to achieve their cost takeout goals. The four areas are to develop a case for change, align executive management around the case, create a multi-year roadmap and possibly the most important, make sure the project has a disciplined benefits realization process in place. The users and stakeholders must see the financial benefit of the transformation, because everyone will ask themselves, Is the pain worth the gain. Executives need to see the quantitative analysis to say yes - the pain is worth the gain. Tags: BearingPoint, Bill Stotzer

Join BearingPoint senior manager Randy Nease as he explores employee on-boarding and how it can be made easier for the new hire. Employee on-boarding begins when the new hire accepts a company s offer, and continues all the way through setting their performance goals. In the midst of this, there are the duties of payroll initiation, employee benefit enrollment and providing them with everything they will need to be productive, such as a permanent seat with an equipped computer. The employee on-boarding process is a great concern for most organizations. The concern being that there is not a single owner of this process, so it is essential to get every responsible party involved. A company needs to ensure that groups such as procurement, real estate for seat assignment, and IT for computer set up are all engaged. In the past, an email was sent company-wide and the manager of the new hire assumed all tactical objectives would be completed. As many companies soon found out, this was hardly ever the case. BearingPoint has partnered with Oracle to provide a solution to on-boarding that involves a precise architecture that serves as the foundation of your central system. This architecture provides a single point of access and serves as a new hire portal for both the employee and the company. This system serves as a tracker for what needs to be done and what has been completed to ensure a smooth transition for your new hire. Tags: human resources, BearingPoint, Randy Nease, on-boarding, Oracle

On February 5, 2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published the final regulations of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which includes the re-authorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF).

Join BearingPoint Managing Director Brian Hart to explore the seven steps to more effective performance and risk management. As a result of the recent credit crisis, organizations are faced with a challenge of making the best use of a very constrained balance sheet. BearingPoint has created a seven-step methodology to help organizations address these issues, and position their companies to deliver superior results. Through the seven steps that have been outlined, you will identify ways to not only examine your daily business, but how to change it. The challenge with financial institutions today is that information is produced in silos. With all this information being spread around, it is hard for a manager to know what is going on and when there is a problem that needs to be dealt with. Our proven methodology focuses on the importance of putting information in the hands of the deal maker and how to change the incentive structure. Above everything else, an organization must learn how to implement a comprehensive integrated performance and risk management framework. This framework is vital for the success of one’s organization. In a period of sharply reduced balance sheet allocations, certain businesses have reached a critical point where information and tools are required if they are to compete effectively. Organizations can better prepare themselves to achieve advantageous returns by formulating a comprehensive risk and performance strategy. A strategy similar to that outlined herein can help management to dramatically reduce the capital your organization consumes while conversely demonstrating superior returns. Tags: BearingPoint, Brian Hart, risk management

Companies that outsource and offshore their services and labor are on a metaphorical diet. By focusing narrowly on cost reduction, they can lose sight of the other important benefits outsourcing can offer.

Cash-strapped governments are increasingly turning to private investors, the investment climate can vary enormously from one country to another, with regulatory hurdles to overcome and special tax considerations to take into account.

Join BearingPoint director Larry Manno to explore enterprise BI (business intelligence) strategies and the opportunities it presents to an organization. Many organizations recognize the opportunity to capture performance benefits through the use of BI tools. Increasingly, they are turning to BI as the means to transform their raw data into actionable information for competitive advantage. However, every organization faces unique challenges in defining their BI vision and executing on it. Even within information-intensive industries such as financial services, there is much opportunity for improvement. Businesses are often architected for the transaction state, not the information state. Even organizations that achieve some level of maturity in their use of BI tools cannot stand idle. Because the Financial Services industry is facing a business environment characterized by a sustained demand for performance in the midst of such a versatile marketplace, they must improve their risk management and transparency. The market will continue to change rapidly, therefore organizations must think strategically and act pragmatically. Exciting developments in BI are opening the door to dramatic improvement in business performance. Organizations can effectively capitalize on the opportunities by taking a strategic approach to enterprise BI. BearingPoint believes that organizations can be effective by matching needs to mature technology enablers on a just-in-time basis and executing incrementally against a time-based road map. This approach is practical for organizations regardless of where they are on the BI maturity continuum. We also believe the ability to execute BI within a business-oriented vision and a broader enterprise information management framework remains a differentiator. Tags: BearingPoint, BI, Business Intelligence, Larry Manno

Divestiture isn’t simply integration in reverse. It’s a complex process that requires special skills.

Across the nation, exploding costs and slowing revenues are stark realities that will need to be creatively addressed at every level of government, if fiscal sustainability is to be achieved. There is good news to report, however.

Join BearingPoint managing director Gil Mermelstein to explore Global Services Delivery and how it can reduce costs while still providing several opportunities for growth. While many companies, especially in the capital markets industry, have done a lot around realigning their global footprint, there are many organizations that are just beginning. Countries such as India and others in Central Europe have seen the most action, as more and more companies look towards outsourcing. It s the major cost reductions and expedited service deliveries that have many companies turning to Global Services Delivery. There are so many opportunities around re-engineering their current operations and improving their speed to market quality. To develop a successful plan of action, a company needs to be given a thorough evaluation of their current program. Once we understand where a company currently stands, it s easier to recommend changes to their current infrastructure. Ever company is different, which means that for each client, the strategy we advise is customized to fit their needs. We not only work with some of the most distinguished experts in the field, but individuals with a deep domain expertise. It is our expertise that will provide you with measurable results in both your bottom line and overall performance. Tags: BearingPoint, Gil Mermelstein