New Protiviti Center of Excellence to Help Companies Stay Agile and Better Manage Performance

MENLO PARK, Calif., July 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Protiviti (www.protiviti.com), a global business consulting and internal audit firm, is launching a new consulting offering along with a portal and thought leadership series to help organizations achieve the intelligence and reporting agility and resiliency they need to be successful under today's dynamic market conditions. The Protiviti Early Mover Center of Excellence (www.protiviti.com/EarlyMover) is designed to provide companies with services, tools and insight for identifying (and acting upon) potential market opportunities and risks that could affect strategic business objectives.

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The "Early Mover" concept, as Protiviti defines it, relates to a company's ability to quickly recognize and take action when market shifts or internal performance variations threaten the validity of the enterprise's most critical strategic assumptions. "Existing management tools and disciplines often fall short in their ability to help executives enhance and protect shareholder value in the face of a rapidly changing business environment," said Jim DeLoach, a Protiviti managing director and member of the firm's Executive Council. "Technology innovations, regulatory requirements, competitor actions and continuing globalization all play a role in creating business threats and opportunities, and many companies are not as agile in responding to these challenges as in previous generations. Organizations that have positioned themselves to be Early Movers are quick to recognize the vital signs and plan a response to them, placing them at a considerable advantage."

Protiviti's new thought leadership series, the Early Mover Series (www.protiviti.com/AnalyzingStrategicRisk), explores the business advantages of becoming an Early Mover as well as the role that Protiviti's Performance/Risk Integration Management Model (PRIM2) (www.protiviti.com/PRIM2) can play in achieving that status. The PRIM2 framework, which helps companies integrate strategy, performance and risk management, is applicable to both rapidly growing organizations and those focused on establishing a sustainable, competitive advantage.

"Our PRIM2 model is at the core of our approach to help companies improve their corporate performance management infrastructure by more effectively aligning it with strategy-setting and risk management," said Jay Thompson, a Protiviti managing director and leader of the firm's Performance and Information Management practice as well as the new Center of Excellence. "Our intent with the Early Mover Center of Excellence is to assist organizations in developing agile and responsive management capabilities. Early-mover status plays a significant role in determining who wins in the pursuit of new opportunities and the management of risks, particularly when critical assumptions that underlie a company's strategies are rendered invalid by rapid market developments."

One example of an Early Mover is Protiviti client Old National Bank. The Evansville, Indiana-based financial institution recognized that its existing performance management tools and processes no longer met the needs of its management team, its board of directors, and its shareholders. With Protiviti's assistance, the bank's response was to proactively upgrade tools and processes before a business threat or changing market conditions left it vulnerable. "In improving our ability to understand internal and external factors that impact our performance, we have been able to establish more accountability throughout the organization, which has improved control of our bottom line," said Chris Wolking, Old National Bank's executive vice president and chief financial officer. "This intelligence has also helped us more proactively respond to new regulations, and that is absolutely critical in our industry." To learn more about how Old National Bank transformed its management orientation, read Protiviti's performer profile: www.protiviti.com/OldNationalBank.

Analyzing Strategic Risk – the first white paper in the Early Mover Series – looks at how proactively identifying and evaluating the risks inherent in a company's strategy can strengthen that strategy as well as the probability of the company achieving its objectives. The white paper touches on such areas as:

• Understanding the critical assumptions underlying the strategy and using contrarian analysis to challenge those assumptions
• Proactively identifying uncertainties inherent in any strategy with a focus on minimizing the unknowns as much as possible
• Using the results of strategic risk analysis to actively monitor the external environment and build an effective early warning capability
• Keeping the risk assessment evergreen as the business environment changes.

Visit Protiviti's Early Mover Center of Excellence at www.protiviti.com/EarlyMover to access the Early Mover Series – Analyzing Strategic Risk; the Performance/Risk Integration Management Model (PRIM2) white paper; The Bulletin: Is Your Organization an Early Mover?; Protiviti's point of view on Analyzing Strategic Risks; performer profiles; a podcast and additional related insights.

About Protiviti

Protiviti is a global consulting and internal audit firm composed of experts specializing in risk, advisory and transaction services. The firm helps solve problems in finance and transactions, operations, technology, litigation, governance, risk, and compliance. Protiviti's highly trained, results-oriented professionals provide a unique perspective on a wide range of critical business issues for clients in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

Protiviti has more than 60 locations worldwide and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE: RHI). Founded in 1948, Robert Half International is a member of the S&P 500 index.

Protiviti is not licensed or registered as a public accounting firm and does not issue opinions on financial statements or offer attestation services.

SOURCE Protiviti