The challenges involved in compliance management are on the increase. With data breaches making headlines often, it’s natural to find yourself stuck between your board and customers. Each group requires its own set of answers. Addressing the issues while at the same trying to keep your organization up-to-date can be quite stressful.
This is where an automated tool proves to come in handy. A tool designed to offer compliance management solution can help solve some of the stressing issues that your organization faces.
Facilitating Communication across Departments
Communication across various departments is one of the main challenges that compliance managers face. When a department doesn’t effectively communicate to the other, chances are they will duplicate their work, which is a waste of resources.
A compliance management tool can smoothen this process, allowing you to see all programs that control effect. This helps you remain compliant without wasting any more resources or time ensuring that all details are streamlined.
Evidence for Truth
When it comes to setting controls, the old saying about “too many cooks in the kitchen” can apply here perfectly. When many departments are involved in managing the security program, chances are you may be met with too much information emanating from different places, each telling a different story. This means a lack of cohesion in the compliance program.
An automated system solves this problem for good. It offers a central location that houses every single piece of your data, creating a single source of truth. This allows you to provide visibility, leading to better and more accurate audit results.
Spreadsheets
A good number of compliance programs usually start our small. They result in using Spreadsheets since it’s a low-cost solution. This works for small businesses, but when it grows, the needs also grow. This, therefore, calls for you to be agile and come up with a program that will offer a better solution.
While tools may cost you some money upfront, they can guarantee useful design to help you get your organization moving, preparing you for success. If you are not familiar with creating central compliance programs, you will want a tool that will help you set up one efficiently and quickly.
Out-dated Software
Software needs regular updates. If you started with one, maintaining it can become a headache. As your organization grows, it could prove useless as it may not match your business’ evolving needs. Think of it as a screwdriver to complete a task. When the project grows, you’ll need to upgrade to a power drill.
A SaaS tool can help you respond to your organization’s evolving needs quickly, saving you time and speeding up your compliance. The software will constantly update because it’s based on the internet. It does this automatically, so there’s nothing you will need to do on your end.
Increased Liability
Legislators are contemplating how they can increase regulatory standards in the world of information security thanks to Equifax. This means one thing: the more regulations are drafted, the more work you’d expect to have. Furthermore, your Board of Directors will seek to lean your strategy to tackle such changes.
A compliance management tool allows you to rest easy knowing that you can see your landscape, decreasing the chances of a security problem. Thanks to automation, you will have better visibility into the compliance program.
New Regulations
With new regulations, organizations have to create more compliance programs. Thanks to automation, control mapping won’t be a problem. A compliance management tool will allow you to see the map of your current standards and controls, identifying those that match the new rules, and those that fall short. This way you can easily adapt to the new regulations.
Understand your Value
Compliance is crucial for any organization. Protecting companies from cyberattacks and data breaches is important. It, therefore, means that your job is a valuable asset. With automation, you can know your value and show your board all the data. You will have a central location to track the benefits of compliance management you provide to your organization.
Vendor Risks
If you are a vendor or managing one, connecting with business objectives means that you all align your risks. Think of it as a house of card. If one of them collapses, the entire structure comes crumbling down. You need to track the compliance of vendors and prove your compliance to customers.
Compliance Exhaustion
With the rapid business pace and all the increasing workload, you can see fatigue in the faces of your employees or yourself. With more regulations coming, responding and making compliance requests tend to be even more exhausting.
With automation, you get the much-needed rest. You’ll be able to schedule all your tasks and monitor them to completion easily. There’s no need to nag people anymore, and your employees won’t feel overwhelmed.
Author Bio
Ken Lynch is an enterprise software startup veteran, who has always been fascinated about what drives workers to work and how to make work more engaging. Ken founded Reciprocity to pursue just that. He has propelled Reciprocity’s success with this mission-based goal of engaging employees with the governance, risk, and compliance goals of their company in order to create more socially minded corporate citizens. Ken earned his BS in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT. Learn more at ReciprocityLabs.com.
