Keeping Pace with Data-Driven Compliance

Data is the fuel for many organizational decisions and strategies. Used to track performance and drive improvements, data analytics is a key but often underutilized tool for effective governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management.

As compliance teams seek better ways to manage, document, and report on their activities, investing in data analytics — and related capabilities like integration and automation — offers a path to program maturity.

Benefits of Compliance Data Analytics

1. Better Governance and Reporting

A firm’s board of directors plays a critical role in the compliance strategy, and many regulatory bodies insist on board-level oversight of risk and compliance management. In 2020, the Department of Justice released updated corporate compliance guidance emphasizing that compliance officers need access to relevant organizational data to enhance their compliance management program and enable “timely and effective monitoring and/or testing of policies, controls, and transactions.”

Implementing this guidance could be more complex than it first appears. Board members, CCOs, and other decision-makers need to consider several questions to move towards data-driven compliance management:

• Do we have a framework for digital transformation? By creating a roadmap for adopting technology to optimize your compliance and risk management processes, your organization’s leadership team can develop strategies and capabilities for meeting regulatory requirements.

Read more: Building a Business Case for Digital Transformation in GRC >

• Do we have the resources to maintain and scale our compliance program? Compliance teams not only need the right digital tools for effective analytics, but also the processes, skills, and training to utilize those tools effectively.

Read more: Why Updating Your GRC Processes Makes Sense >

• How are we adding value to our risk management strategy? Simply collecting data is not enough. Aggregating, understanding, and applying it for better risk-based decision-making and efficient, compliant reporting processes will be of concern for board members and executive leadership. The C-suite will need to provide guidance to risk and compliance teams, demonstrating the value of the digital transformation strategy and maintaining focus on areas that pose the biggest opportunity for improvements.

2. Enhanced Risk & Compliance Integration and Insights

Organizations need to improve their data access and insights if they want a more efficient, agile compliance function. By leveraging technology and automation, compliance teams can improve their ability to manage emerging risks and incidents and deliver timely information to stakeholders.

Adopting a standardized technology architecture streamlines processes and promotes improvements throughout the compliance management lifecycle, including:

• Regulatory Change/Obligation Management
• Issue Management and Reporting
• Policy Management
• Third-Party Compliance Management
• Training Management

Organizations are discovering that manual, document-centric approaches to compliance take up too much time and resources and don’t support effective management, monitoring, and reporting. Amidst constant regulatory and business changes, manual GRC management processes can’t keep up.

Read more: Why Manual GRC Processes Don’t Work >

There has never been a greater need for compliance automation, built on a flexible technology and information architecture, than there is today. Back-end compliance management and oversight are crucial to organizational resilience, and a compliance management solution enables data analytics, coordination, and information-sharing between all relevant stakeholders.