Can SOX services be outsourced?

Companies, especially larger ones, have been grappling with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) for over a year now. Maturity, say analysts, has set in, and most firms, now over the learning curve, are trying to find ways to reduce the labour and cost it takes to comply. However, the money it will take to comply with SOX in 2006 is still significant. According to John Hagerty, vice-president and research fellow at consulting firm AMR Research, companies will spend some $9 billion dollars to comply with SOX for this year.

So perhaps it's not surprising that firms are hoping to find ways of applying technology to drive down costs, and Hagerty notes that SOX related software has seen an uptick in spending. This year alone, companies will spend $2 billion on technology solutions for SOX. Much of this software, according to Paul Hammerman, vice-president of enterprise applications at Forrester, a technology research firm, promises to provide continuous controls monitoring and automation, as well as applications for