AS a compliance technology promoter, I believe that no compliance program can function at maximum efficiency without leveraging solutions to automate and enhance their effort across the organization.
Just like a compliance program itself, compliance solutions come in all shapes and sizes. I am working with quite a number of companies each year to learn about their programs, their challenges, and—of course—the technologies they use. As a result, I have a good sense of how automation can help and what kind of tools can be the most effective in building and managing a successful compliance program, with focus on data privacy protection, cyber security and anti-corruption.
With so many vendors and tools in the market, how does a compliance team gain an understanding of what efficiencies technology can bring to their program? While it is always easy to convince data privacy officers, security officers and compliance professionals how important automation/compliance technologies are, getting management to make the resources/budgets available is much more difficult. And that, despite the fact that management will suffer most when data and security breaches happen.
And for those who have already made the investment, how do they determine how they could take their technology further?
I am excited about the release of a Compliance Technology Health Check! The health check is an interactive assessment that allows compliance teams to take an inventory of their technology by understanding its key capabilities and benchmarking how those capabilities to the technology offered in the market today. We introduced a similar “self-assessment checking system” at the Integrity Initiative, and I am happy to see that this wider health check tool. The free five-minute assessment will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of the solutions currently supporting your compliance program.
The health check examines eight key components of compliance and the technology that manages them. These areas of focus are (I added some of the questions that you will have to answer in the check):
Due diligence
DO you cover the full spectrum of risks, including screening and enhanced due diligence, and manage all third parties in a single view?
Whistle-blower hot line and case management
DO you manage both incoming cases and ongoing investigations in a fully secure environment, and track all mitigation actions involved with a case from start to finish?
Policy
DO you centralize all policies in a single library and can you access real-time data, allowing you to see which policies are assigned, signed and pending?
Training
Can your employees access training from any device (desktop, mobile and iPad) and can you track completion rates in real time and view in-depth results?
Risk management
Can you create and track risks through an easy-to-use interface and assess changes in risks and follow-up with suggested mitigation activities?
Conflicts of interest
Can you track trends in order to identify increased risks and dynamically select approvers, including local managers or other relevant parties?
Gifts and entertainment
Can you easily see how many gifts one person, or company, has received over time?
Connectivity
Can you view which geographies, employees or third parties present high risks to your organization?
After you complete the health assessment, you will receive a score from zero to 100.
Your score will give you a sense of how your technology stacks up. From there, you can choose to connect with technology experts to discuss your score further. During that session, you will learn about key areas of opportunity to improve your solutions and better understand the methodology behind the score.
It’s time for a checkup! The doctor is in!
To get access to the program and complete the Compliance Technology Health Check, you have to respond to this column and I will bring you in touch with an experienced service provider. If you act fast, you can still see your score today.
E-mail me at schumacher@eitsc.com.