Are things really that different at the low end?
The phrase “corporate governance” has become extremely prominent in the IT industry in recent times as vendors have looked to exploit the growing paranoia resulting from the regulatory reaction to the numerous financial scandals that have occurred in recent years. Most of the discussion, however, has centred around the big guys, i.e. large publicly trading corporates. In line with this, the bulk of the messaging and coverage we have seen has tended to highlight high profile regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), Basel II and others emerging from the European Union.
Those running small private limited companies, which includes many of the independent contractors and small consulting and research firms out there, may be forgiven for thinking that all of the governance and compliance noise doesn’t have much to do with them. Well, if you’re talking about something like SOX, you’re probably right, but the regulatory environment is changing for the little guys too.
Before getting into that, though, it is interesting to consider the kinds of regulations small businesses are subject to. Taking the UK as an example, the first and most obvious set of regulations that apply is the Companies Act, which actually deals with many of the same issues that are often highlighted, mistakenly, as being new by IT vendors and unique to the high profile regulations mentioned earlier.
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