Perhaps a strange title to talk about process and controls, but hang with me for a second.  As I engage with organizations of all sizes and talk about the issues and problems facing them, on the surface, everything looks fine and they are just gliding across the water like nothing is amiss.  But dig down and go under the surface, and you are likely to find frantic activity, just to keep up.  So there you have it, like a duck gliding across the pond with the greatest of ease but paddling like heck to keep up, so are most organizations today.

And is it any surprise?  Given the across the board cuts needed to survive, there are simply fewer people supporting operations today than there was last year at this time.  This brings me to a very interesting question.  As top line growth returns, are companies more likely to hire back support personnel, try and support revenue growth with the existing cost structure, or a combination of both?  Obviously it is too early to know for sure, but this is something that organizations need to begin thinking through.

I suspect for most it will be a combination of selective hires and a desire to post enhanced profits.  Kind of a “cake and eat it too” approach.  What is less clear is what the triggers, or drivers, are that will nudge companies to take action.  I think it will be very interesting to see what happens in the 3rd and 4th quarters as auditors begin to test the controls that were overly documented during the Sarbanes-Oxley activities of the past few years and designed for support organizations 20% larger than today.  I don’t believe for a second, that all of the documented control activities are actually being performed and this could be a problem for some companies.  It will be interesting to see what remediation activities will need to occur.

The better option for most, is to begin capturing future cost savings by changing existing process and related controls to fit the realities of the “new” world.  Lets face it, there was, and to some extent still is, a lot of excess waste in most organizations.  You never know what you can live without until you don’t have it, and the same is true in the business world.  I believe that it is very unlikely that companies will revert back to mid-2008 staffing levels.  As a result, organizations need to begin now to optimize existing process to the “new” world staffing levels and begin to capture future cost savings.