A Day in the Life of a Business Controls Analyst

Trust and Integrity are IBM's most valuable asset in the global marketplace
which are an important consideration for IBM's stakeholders as well as with whom
clients choose to do business. Without maintaining these, the innovations,
development and transformation of solutions that would make the world a better
place in this Cognitive Business era would not have been achieved.
This is where the IBM Business Controls enter which oversee financial
operations, safeguard assets and resources, and ensure adherence to policies and
plans. Thereby, guaranteeing ethical conduct in business operations.
To better understand this, we, the #BeViral team have spoken with Ms. May
Caymo, a Business Controls Analyst, a little about her, about what her role is, why
Business controls matter, and how it would be of value to the center.
May Caymo, also known as MAYA has been with IBM for 5 years and 10
months (6th year this March, Happy Anniversary!). Everybody can easily spot Maya
on HW floor especially when someone will announce, Kensingtons guys, Maya is
here! She was a Team Leader at a BPO company. She started in an entry level
position in IBM as Bid Support Specialist System X under JK (John Kenneth N Dalida).
Business Controls Team is her 8th team. She says that she wanted to learn more
every time she gained and learned enough skills in one process. It took her 9
months on every role she belonged, shortest was 3 months as QA and then she
applied in the BC Analyst role.
When asked whats her typical day at work, she promptly responded BUSY.
She hates being late so she usually go to work 10-15minutes early, answering
emails even before her shift starts. She usually starts checking if they have an RFI
(Request for Information) from the audit team. The responses to RFI are said to be
the BC Team's top priority. If there is an RFI, they have to cascade it to the
operations team, set an internal deadline then collate the responses back. She
helps with the review of the responses before posting the documents in the
auditors team room. Maya also attends process walk through. Process Walk
through is an activity wherein the operations team presents their process. They ask
questions regarding the processes and clarify anything unclear.
She helps En
(Business Controls Manager) to track the action items of the operations team
because in every process walk through, there will be an action for the operations
team to work on if a risk is identified to be existing. They need to ensure that the
team will do the necessary steps in mitigating the identified risks. She also provides
assistance with operation team when they have questions regarding business
controls related activities, helps the team in monitoring the process documents if
they are updated and easily accessible, do a side by side activity with the BSS to
ensure that shell quickly learn the process, monitors other BC related activities and
ensure that the deadlines are met, assists Hortolandia SOX testers to ensure that
they get the responses they need from HW operations team. This also applies to
other audit activities that HW Manila is not hosting but are just providing some
documents. BC Team needs to ensure that they are providing the documents on
time. She also revises, creates and perform the test plans used in the local and

compliance testing which is done on a monthly basis. The BC Team will identify a
high risk process then perform a review testing of the deals processed.
With all these activities she has on a day, shes still able to apply work-life
balance by attending IBM activities like "Global Women of IBM (GWIBM) and IBM Top
Talent activities. Outside IBM, during weekends, she run or jog, meet with friends
and spend a lot of time with her family - we definitely have a cheerful and energetic
Maya. For her, the good thing about being a Business Controls Analyst is she gets
to know almost all of the people working on HW Team from BSS level up to Tower
Lead. However, some may have looked at her as a "police" { laughing }
investigating and looking for anything wrong that they've done while processing
their deals. She handles this by explaining the reason why business controls team
are doing such activity then after that she tries to create a small talk with them.
According to her, with the kind of work that she performs, she needs to find a way
to connect with the operations team and create harmonious working relationship.
We then asked, what are the skills needed for the job? (Will there be an
opening? Ahem. :D). The skills are good communication, highly analytical and detail
oriented, and strong ability to identify risk exposures. She admitted shes not yet
an expert in identifying risk exposures. However, with the help of En (BC Manager)
and Myra (BC Tower Leader), shes able to manage her daily tasks and with
continuous testing and BC activities theyre performing, she believes that shell be
able to gain the skills that her tower leader is expecting from her. As per her words
of advice, "Compete with yourself, be better than who you are yesterday. Accept
changes and look at it as a new learning opportunity.
Simply speaking, business controls is a policy or practice that is established
within an organization to create value or minimize risk. Maya and the team ensures
that they: Assist in detecting and preventing fraud , ensure compliance with
mandated external requirements, manage our risks, promote operational efficiency
and effectiveness, provide us with reasonable assurance on producing reliable
financial reporting and safeguard our assets. (Source: https://w3connections.ibm.com/wikis/home?lang=enus#!/wiki/W761a7cd6952b_43ff_920f_b412cd0157f4/page/Business%20Controls)
Overall, a successful system of business control is not built overnight, but it is
an ongoing process of fine tuning the inner workings of a company. It is necessary
to help IBMers and other partners understand the objectives of the company as a
whole, provide reasonable assurance to clients and reflect the essence of IBM's
value of trust and personal responsibility. With these, a big kudos to our
Business Controls Analysts!