Embedded Compliance: What to Consider as a Part of a Business Strategy
What are the main goals of the company’s objectives regarding compliance? Most organizations aim to expand their potential by increasing sales perspectives, as they become a trusted market player supported by certification opportunities. Simple as it is! However, if we look deeper, the list of compliance-related challenges grows exponentially, among which there are the following pain points:
- The current global security situation
- Pandemic effect on the world economy
- Ever-changing regulatory requirements
- Tightening of compliance rules
- Incorrect implementation of standards
- Shortage of skilled workers
- Budget cuttings
- Lack of support from management in assigning a compliance team
TOP Standards and Regulations for Companies to Comply With
Challenges in the compliance landscape may be underestimated and handled as the “less priority” activities and consequently affected by financial budget shortages derived from the need to stay afloat. Such tendencies result in a growing number of cybercrimes, security incidents, fines, and reputation damage.
Here is the basic list of regulations companies must adhere to: Law to Strengthen Business Integrity (VerSanG), BSI Security Act, GDPR, KWG §44 for banks, BaFin, PCI-DSS, Accounting requirements, Whistleblower Law, Compliance rules based on legal requirements (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik BSI Sicherheitsheitsgesetz 2.0), social rules and values, etc.
Indeed, depending on the sector, location, company specifics, the list of regulations can be extended. To move forward with certification, an organization should assess the current state of compliance and get a clear understanding of which gaps to cover, challenges to resolve, and other points to address. Most companies often find themselves at a point where they face certain compliance-related pain points that must be addressed.
The Most Frequent Challenges when Building a Compliance in Your Company and Solutions
How to understand where precisely in the compliance journey you are at? Are there any specific gaps for you to consider? Together with our Partner wibocon GmbH, we have prepared an ultimate checklist of how to overcome the existing challenges of establishing and maintaining compliance processes in your organization.
Challenge 1: Lack of clear understanding of your current state of compliance
There are many directions to be covered while working on IT compliance, such as information security, availability, data retention, and data protection. A company should have a holistic view of where they are currently in their compliance and what steps they must take to achieve certification.
No comprehensive approach to compliance:
- Impossibility to encompass all compliance-relevant documents that are scattered in countless folders and drives
- Too much manual work resulting in human errors
- Excessive paperwork
- The uncontrolled flow of tasks
- Lack of time and human resources
- No real-time information about potential compliance issues
Solution 1. The automated workflow in SCM
- Holistic setup, maintenance, review, revision, and process management
- Implementation of any required standard
- Automation of operational processes
Challenge 2: Distributed knowledge and data
What is the currently eligible source of regulatory information? Is the version of the standard you’re using still valid? How easily can your data be tracked and monitored, and who has access to it? These are only some of the questions organizations must answer and know where the necessary data is located.
Data-related problems:
- Large amounts of data are distributed at innumerable points
- An uncontrolled number of people are responsible for sensitive information
- Data is distributed over many data pools
- Unavailability of the currently used source of information
- Conflicts and gaps cannot be identified and closed
- Management challenges: Incomplete risk management and loopholes
Solution 2. Data integration and consolidation
- ISMS / Compliance-as-a-service
- Central data collection and management
- Evaluation and consolidation of the data by external experts
- Day-by-day operation
- Regular reports
Challenge 3: Complexity of legal requirements
It is easy to get lost in numerous changes, updates, and improvements of all applicable laws, regulations, and standards.
There are two ways to work on the solution to this challenge:
- Do it on your own (which results in a vicious circle with challenges 1 and 2)
- Hire a compliance consultancy team. The second option dramatically simplifies the compliance processes, as the consultancy company takes responsibility for a bunch of time- and effort-consuming processes.
Regulatory complexity:
- Requirements expand annually
- Arising continuously regulatory requirements
- The pressure to act on the part of legislation and compliance requirements
- High penalties for violations and non-compliance
Solution 3. Optimized compliance with a consulting support:
- Guidance through the regulatory requirements
- Prioritization of the compliance topics
- Training the company’s contact person about compliance
- Control of the timely implementation of regulation updates with the help of a GRC solution
- Conduction of a complete compliance and risk management process
Challenge 4: Poorly organized compliance-related processes
Compliance is about the order, starting from a mapped strategy with aims, steps, and implementation phases, ending with the tracking mechanisms to quickly access required data. Lack of organization and monitoring can pose significant challenges to the implementation of ISMS.
Lack of order and poorly organized monitoring:
- No strategy in the company
- No effective monitoring mechanisms
- Organizational silos
- No trackability due to scattered data
Solution 4. Collaboration center
- Everything in one place, all information is maintained centrally
- Reassessment of processes
- strategy description
- Progress tracking and reports (consistent and complete, regular reports including all information and statuses)
How Compliance-as-a-service Helps You Gain a Holistic View
As outlined above, compliance involves many pain points that the company must resolve. The world’s leading companies have acknowledged a comprehensive approach as the most effective one in aligning with international standards and laws. It enables you to build and implement a robust compliance strategy, using the right tech-driven solution that is also a crucial aspect of success. The path is simple: Assess your current status — Get trustworthy consulting support– Choose the right GRC solution — Invest resources — Maintain compliance – Get certification
The Infopulse SCM, a single platform for managing all the compliance-related processes, allows you to incorporate aligned frameworks according to the required standard. Combining an easily adjustable solution with the experience of the consultancy company wibocon GmbH will enable you to enjoy its benefits:
- Audit readiness 24/7, reporting capability 24/7
- Prioritizing tasks and assignments
- Regular management reports to the board of directors
- Single data consolidation center and communication platform for all activity – Infopulse SCM.
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