GLOBALISATION OF BUSINESS, Syed Sajid [reading in the dark .txt] 📗

ITAP can help expand finance's global leadership capabilities by adapting proven tools and methods to fit each unique organization. Depending on the client's needs, ITAP's level of involvement varies from consulting, to providing proprietary tools, to implementation. ITAP reviews with the client the state of their business, the extent to which finance has transformed its processes and systems, and the resources and capabilities that are available internally for leadership development.
There are various circumstances under which CFO's turn to ITAP to develop their staff's leadership capabilities:
The Business is: The process and system transformations: Internal Leadership Development Capabilities:
Expanding, and finance needs to take on more responsibilities in order to serve the business
OR
Contracting, and finance and perhaps other functions have been downsized. Finance has fewer resources, yet many of its services remain essential to the business.
OR
Merging with another business and the finance function is expected to integrate. Require further refinement before the starting the implementation phase
OR
Meet expectations, and the implementation work is underway
OR
Need more input from the leadership to overcome obstacles
OR
Compel finance leaders to develop new capabilities necessary to leverage the upgraded processes and systems. A competency model is in place, but it needs to be assessed for culture bias, and aligned with the global reach of finance leaders.
OR
There are not enough internal resources to use the existing model to:
1. Assess finance leadership potential
2. Hire and promote finance leaders
3. Manage performance and learning
OR
There is no competency model in place
The outcome of ITAP's involvement is a finance team that supports the CFO's efforts to integrate the business. The organization successfully meets the challenge of fragmented management practices, drawing planning and measurement systems together to achieve savings across the lines of business. Customized to the unique circumstances of each client, ITAP designs solutions that enable global finance leaders to:
• Understand the difference between local approaches and corporate ones
• Help the local organization understand and comply with what is in the best interests of the organization (e.g. asset management, esp. cash)
• Support the local business leader in making sound, fact-based decisions and in anticipating their need for information to make decisions
• Provide a balanced perspective on what is possible as well as the potential outcomes of certain decisions (e.g. understanding price point from both a marketing and a finance perspective)
• Provide a local, regional and global perspective on local decision options (e.g. tax, and foreign exchange implications)
Here are two examples of recent ITAP projects:
Case #1 - A Global Financial Institution
A global financial institution approached ITAP for support in a Global Financial Transformation Project. ITAP was tasked with identifying the behavioral competencies required to be an effective financial business partner while retaining the best practice of financial risk management, for which this organization is well-known. ITAP focused on the strategic intent of the organization and, using proven research techniques, uncovered/defined the behaviors necessary to the financial work of today and of the future. Using the defined competency model, the client:
• Performed a gap analysis to identify organizational needs
• Assessed/identified which employees had the capabilities and how much they had
• Used that to data to develop or select those who would succeed and stay
In this case, the competency model included multiple levels of the finance function starting at the CFO level and down to offshore financial call center and internal support positions.
Case #2 - A Global Consumer Products Company
A global consumer products company tasked ITAP with defining how to develop financial talent following an organizational restructuring that reduced silos and installed a matrixed management structure. The scope was to build a finance curriculum around existing development processes focusing on both talent and the rest of the global finance function (5,000 people worldwide). ITAP designed a 5-day offsite that included deeply challenging sessions on topics such as pricing, product costing, margin management, inventory control, tax/treasury and other topics specific to this business. ITAP partnered with finance and other business functions (marketing, supply chain, operations) to build company-specific cases which required demonstration of business partnering skills. As business partnering was a central theme of the program, ITAP leveraged its Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ to bring a truly global perspective to the meaning of partnership in this organization.
ITAP also wrote Instructor Guides, Participant Guides and collected support materials so that the talent development program would be repeatable.
In addition, ITAP created a virtual training portal for webinar-style training. This capability allows the organization to trickle-down important functional learning lessons in a cost effective way throughout finance and beyond.
Auditing and Functional Excellence
Some CFO’s seek to complement an investment in leadership with workshops on professional conduct. ITAP’s offers workshops that are approved by the State Board for Public Accountancy of New York State. Accountants who successfully complete a workshop receive Continuing Professional Education credits in Auditing, following ITAP Americas’ New York Sponsor License # 002245. The workshops have been approved:
Business Ethics Across Cultures
Participants learn to navigate in a business world in which a best practice in one culture is unethical in another. They learn to uphold their ethical standards by creatively addressing the underlying needs and expectations of their business partners. (1 CPE credit)
Ethical Conduct and Clients
Participants learn to anticipate and manage barriers to compliance in their relationship with internal and external clients. They practice awareness and communication skills that are effective in removing social barriers to compliance. They apply their learning to strengthen their own and their clients' commitment to ethical conduct. (1 CPE credit)
Ethics and Cultural Diversity
Workplace culture can have both a negative and a positive impact on ethical conduct. Participants learn to draw on shared cultural values to manage cultural barriers to compliance, and strengthen their own and their colleagues' commitment to ethical conduct. (1 CPE credit)
Ethical Conduct at the Workplace:
Participants learn to identify and manage barriers to compliance and practice awareness and communication skills that are associated with ethical conduct. They apply their learning to strengthen their own and their colleagues' commitment to ethical conduct. (2 CPE credits)
Our Approach
ITAP International helps companies build global capacity. We focus on building effective partnerships with clients, contributing through the roles that are most appropriate and effective for the successful delivery of the project.

We focus on organizational strategy. We look forward to identify future needs as well as helping our clients deal with the urgent and the current. We integrate external understanding - such as customer, market, economic and competitor intelligence - into the design and delivery of culturally appropriate business solutions. We work with the realities of our client's operating structures.

ITAP concentrates on making the link between real issues and practical solutions. We help clients to find the pressure points and to understand the consequences of the status quo. We work with clients to identify options and find the best solutions - for their business, in their markets, with their customers, with their strategy.
What Makes ITAP Unique
The two things that make ITAP unique as a consulting firm are our breadth and depth.
1. ITAP International and its Alliance members provide your company with an integrated international network of Affiliate and Associate companies across the major economic centers of the world. Our offerings are wide ranging in both geography and function.
2. Our company and network includes only seasoned professionals with diverse international experience and a wide variety of capabilities.
We Believe in Partnering
We are partners and will work within the constraints of your organization, offering full-service consulting or behind the scenes support. Our experience includes partnering with both clients and our affiliates across a wide geographic network. Our projects have a wide range - from complete redesign of US call center training used by outsourcing vendors (to make it appropriate for Indian audiences) - to board development of a biotech company that has grown through acquisition. (Seeexample project list.)
We Recommend Taking a Whole Systems Approach
If you come to us with a problem/challenge, ITAP will work to help you see the benefit of analyzing the whole systems and their impact rather than taking a tactical approach and hoping that it is enough of a solution.
ITAP prefers to conduct needs assessments to identify systemic impact on issues. To conduct the analysis ITAP uses appropriate data collection techniques which could include informal discussions, targeted interviews, electronic surveys, use of assessment instruments and/or other means of data collection. We specialize in uncovering areas within systems where culture plays a hidden role.
Example:
A leadership development program for leaders of remote and global teams was not having the desired effect of improving performance. A systemic analysis found that the process of setting goals, giving feedback and assessing employees was very individualistic (representing the home culture's cultural preference). Some minor modifications to the process (such as focusing more on outcomes than on the process), training on how to communicate about performance expectations in high power distance cultures and use of competency models with leveled behaviors in cultures with a preference for Certainty, were all recommended to globalize the performance process.
We Transfer Knowledge
ITAP understands the necessity of transferring capability to internal service providers. Rather than make your company dependent on consulting services, ITAP works alongside, certifies and otherwise prepares your internal professionals to continue the work we start together.
ITAP International Alliance Affiliates
Affiliate companies are those companies and individuals who seek to access ITAP Alliance Network benefits and who make a formal commitment to the obligations of Alliance membership. Through legal agreement, Affiliates are closely aligned with ITAP International and often are the lead partner for a given geography / country.

Affiliate responsibilities include co-branding with ITAP and proactively marketing and developing client relationships. Affiliate consultants are trained to deliver the Intellectual Property (IP) of ITAP International, and are expected to bring clients to the network.

ITAP Alliance Affiliates meet strict quality standards and deep service capability criteria and provide quality services in the cross-cultural and human resources fields in their home countries. They also support projects globally as their expertise allows and they may be allowed to bring Intellectual Property to ITAP and other Alliance Affiliate and Associate companies.

This growing network provides broad client coverage in many parts of the world. Please let us know if you would like further information about ITAP International Alliance Affiliates or contact these firms directly.
ITAP Affiliate Companies include (in alphabetical order by country):
ITAP Argentina

Delta Management Consulting is a consulting firm specializing in Human Resources Strategic Planning, Organizational Development and Leadership. Founded in 1995, its team has been working on change and organizational development processes, mergers and acquisitions, and privatizations throughout Latin America.
Competency Model Development, the Development Centers -for managerial competencies-, Executive Coaching, and the Delta Leadership Clinic -for senior managers- are among Delta's major products.
Located in Buenos Aires, with operating bases in São Paulo and Quito -through strategic alliances- Delta provides highly complex HRD services. Its client portfolio is focused among the major international companies with branches in Argentina and other countries in the Southern Cone. The working languages are Spanish, English and Portuguese.

ITAP China

Shi Bisset & Associates have over 25 years of Organisational Development, Performance Management and Executive Coaching experience in Asia, the Middle East and Europe (15 years in China). They offer exceptional sensitivity to cross-cultural and organisational change issues and provide a truly custom-made solution to management issues in Chinese, Japanese, English, French and Italian. Shi Bisset is a certified Lominger associate. She has worked with and been referred by BASF Japan Ltd and Virgin Atlantic Airways (regionally). She has, in addition, developed several executive management assessment instruments and implemented related development coaching and programmes at senior and middle management levels for over 50 companies in Asia and Europe.

ITAP Denmark

Human House specializes in management and organizational development and cross-cultural training. Their approaches include coaching of