Compliance Training – the new thrust area at FCS

Date: February 20, 2004

FCS Software Solutions Limited, a Noida-based IT applications company, plans to increase the share of compliance training solutions to 18-22 % of the total turnover of its E-learning Division by the end of the next financial year. At present, compliance training accounts for a relatively small 4-6% of its total e-learning turnover.

According to Mr Dalip Kumar, Managing Director, FCS, the company has already provided compliance training and communication solutions to several major US clients, including 5 Fortune 500 companies. “We see this area as the next sunrise IT opportunity,” says Mr Kumar, “which will help the Indian e-learning sector touch amazing new heights of success in the US market.”

The recent past has seen revelations of unethical and illegal conduct within US businesses to an unprecedented extent. The US Congress responded to the national outcry over the extraordinary scandals with a legislation in 2002 that placed new compliance-related responsibilities on companies.

The genesis of this increased focus on legal and regulatory compliance can be traced to the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines in the US that were framed in 1991. Most of these guidelines and Acts and other recent corporate governance initiatives – chiefly the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 – include an enhanced focus on training, controls and oversight in the financial and corporate accounting areas.

Preventing financial reporting fraud is, of course, the overriding goal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and this message is conveyed with maximum impact on www.sarbanesoxleytraining.com, a website developed by FCS specifically for the purpose. FCS developed this site as part of its increased thrust on compliance training. The site explains in detail the various provisions of the Act, state legislation, agency pronouncements, court cases and scholarly writings which offer myriad rules, regulations, prohibitions, and interpretations. Substantial space has been devoted to the significance and the implications of section 404 of the Act.

FCS has been focusing on developing and implementing corporate compliance and ethics training programs for business organizations worldwide over the past few years. According to Mr Vineet Narang, Vice-President, Strategic Planning and Business Development at FCS, the company has over the years developed capabilities and processes relating to the design, development and effective delivery of compliance training solutions and programs for different media.

“We have developed Compliance Tracking System (CTS), a web-based tool to monitor the compliance requirements in an organization and to enable the participation of employees to meet organizational goals and actual performance,” Says Mr Narang. “The CTS consists of project plans, certifications, compliance norms, HR norms, etc, that are all made available for reporting and analyses of employee activities. CTS can also be implemented to track service work on essential service equipment, contract requirements for specific service tasks that are outsourced or an environment where regulation requirements need to be adhered to.”

Aside from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, FCS also offers online training on other aspects of legal and regulatory compliance including mutual respect in the workplace, environment safety and health and information security. FCS aims to serve as a single source for all the compliance training needs of business organizations worldwide.

The training solutions offered by FCS help reduce a company's legal exposure by ensuring that employees actually get trained in checking a potential legal problem from snowballing. Using an effective, story-based approach, the customized compliance training solutions outline the consequences of non-compliance and present important strategies for avoiding unsavory legal situations even before they take off.

The FCS advantage lies in the fact that it is focused on optimizing clients' return on investment on compliance training programs. FCS leverages the power and reach of Internet learning technology to empower corporate employees with awareness about how to comply with the various laws, regulations and policies that impact the workplace. The engaging, interactive format of the training programs, and the company's ability to deliver them in any medium specified by the client, go a long way in ensuring that the client has a compliant, better-informed workforce.

FCS Software Solutions Limited is a KPMG-certified ISO 9001 IT solutions company with a clear roadmap to CMM SEI Model 5. It has its development center at Noida (near Delhi, India) and offices in California and New Jersey (USA). The company also has ready-to-be-deployed similar size development facility at Gurgaon (near Delhi, India). FCS is in its 10 th year of successful operations.

FCS provides IT services to US and India-based companies. It is currently servicing more than 65 clients, 11 of which are fortune 500 corporations. It provides services in business applications, E-learning and Digital Content, and Product Engineering Services. The software product companies can use the services of FCS from building to launching their product. FCS works in Java, .NET, Oracle, MS SQL Server, Open Source Code solutions around Linux, Apache, and MySQL. FCS provides a voice and web-based 24X7 Technical Support services to the end-users of its clients' services and products.