From The Editor

There are 3 topics covered in this issue of The Hong Kong Manager. The first and third topics are the continuation of those in the last issue. They are on human resource technology and fund investment. The second article is on the information security. This article is reprinted here with the permission of the Institute of Financial Accountants, UK. It has just been published in the January/February issue of the Institute's Journal Financial Accountant this year.

The first article "e-HR" is abstracted from the keynote speech presented by Mr Al Doran to the large audience in attendance at the official release of UFSoft e-HR version 1.0 on March 21, 2003 in Beijing China.

The article illustrates with practical cases how e-HR can reduce costs, improve service levels, help making decisions, increase employee satisfaction as well as facilitate the jobs of human resources management.

In the article Your Life in Their Hands, the author Mr Steve Leitch brings up the issue of the importance of information security for business enterprises. Referring to a recent survey on security, he points out that many top-management executives perceive internal security breaches were a bigger threat to business than those originating from outside their companies. As a result, it is important for any enterprise to have a clear company policy concerning fraud; to maintain tight control over accounting systems and define staff responsibilities for preventing fraud within the firm.

The third article is contributed by The Hong Kong Investment Funds Association. In the previous article on funds investment, mainly the concept and characteristics of mutual funds are covered. In this issue, the article on funds investment will introduce to readers those main points for selecting a fund and fund companies.