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GETTING STARTED
Achieving your electronic goals and optimizing your business potential means:
- Assuring your business and trading partners that you are committed to meeting their needs and overcoming any concerns they have.
- Providing online shoppers with a safe, inviting, efficient, and valuable shopping environment.
- Keeping your sales promise.
Concretely demonstrating your trustworthiness has benefits such as improved customer acquisition and higher sales conversion ratios. You also get peace of mind knowing that your customers are being well treated.
SysTrust and WebTrust have a demonstrated ability to improve customer acquisition and sales conversion rates.
In short, you are ready to begin.
Here's the process:
- Contact a trained, licensed WebTrust provider. Start by asking your
CPA, Chartered Accountant, or equivalent whether he or she offers
these services. If not, suggest they visit www.aicpa.org/trustservices
or www.cica.ca/trustservices
for more information on the program.
- To find a licensed CPA in the United States or to find a licensed CA in Canada please contact Bryan Walker at bryan.walker@cica.ca or (416) 204-3278
- You will want to know about costs involved. Your accountant will
gladly provide a cost proposal. As background, the costs cover two
main areas: First, the fees of the professionals (CPAs and perhaps
others) who examine your system. These fees reflect the work required
to assure you and your customers that all applicable Trust Services
Principles and Criteria are met. Second, there is an annual fee for
the SysTrust/WebTrust seal.
Additional E-Business Services
In qualifying to display the SysTrust/WebTrust seal, many e-Businesses have
found the CPAs' business knowledge and experience extremely valuable.
As these businesses prepare to meet the Trust Services Principles and
Criteria, CPAs, Chartered Accountants, and their equivalents can offer
guidance and assistance. Areas where leading companies are benefiting
from our professionals' business background today include:
Strategy Development and Planning
- Market and competitive analysis (integral to business and marketing strategy
and plans)
- Corporate finance (e.g., identifying and finding capital sources ranging from venture capital to the public markets and even traditional asset-based lending sources)
- Mergers & Acquisitions advisory services (acquisition structuring and exit
strategy, financial and tax due diligence, on-call technical services)
- E-Business Vision and Opportunity Assessment
- Risk Identification and Assessment
- Intellectual property valuation and assessment
- Tax planning
- Initial Public Offering (IPO) Services
Design
- Website design (usability analysis, best practice assessment, site navigation
map and depth chart)
- Readiness assessment (WebTrust, SysTrust, & metrics)
- Systems analysis and design
- Performance, availability and capacity planning
- Demand forecast
Implementation
- Systems implementation (development, testing, and rollout)
- Due diligence
- Business continuity/Disaster planning
- Risk identification and management
- Financial statement assistance
Operations Cycle
- Information technology audit services
- Privacy reviews
- Security testing and reviews
- Website activity analysis (monitor and track patterns of interactions at
web sites to improve online business objectives that enhance the overall
effectiveness of the online business)
- Site maintenance
- Performance measurement
- Human capital services (compensation strategy and equity incentives,
HR information systems, international employment solutions, organizational
design, people strategy and human resource management, retirement,
actuarial and benefits)
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