We’ve talked before about the benefits of being proactive versus reactive. Being proactive is more beneficial than being reactive in every aspect of life, whether in business, sports, or just everyday life. A task as simple as crossing a street can illustrate this point: be proactive by looking both ways ahead of time and avoiding…
Businesses in Europe and the US are poised to leave us behind. That may seem a bit blunt and perhaps is a slight overstatement, but the essence of the statement is true, according to new global data released by multinational professional services firm Ernst and Young.
The survey in question looked at businesses around the world and how they are managing their risk. While Australia has historically “been at the forefront of risk management”, we are now merely “on par” with our industrial global counterparts, and that is a concerning trend.
Today we consider how real-time risk management is necessary, in order to compete in global business.
Compliance in many organisations is reactive rather than proactive, and perceived as a necessary evil to stay in business. More sophisticated organisations who place a higher value on compliance, however, are using the data from compliance audits to gain competitive advantage and mitigate risk exposure.
Compliance data, when collected correctly, is rich business intelligence and offers invaluable insight into internal and external business process, performance and control metrics. Digitised compliance monitoring systems are a necessity to gather this information in real-time, which is the only way this application of the data is effectively possible. The result of this forward thinking application of data is a state of “predictive compliance”.
Today we consider how real-time audit data can allow businesses to predict and prevent future compliance risks.
The key buzzword for business over the last decade has, without question, been “disruption”. A disruptive company, product, or service is one that brings an entirely new angle and vision to an existing industry, and when they do they make waves amongst both the current industry players and the governments that regulate them and their industry.
In this article, examine how new and disruptive industries and services are challenging regulation and compliance bodies.
Technology is changing the way businesses, and the world, operates at an almost blinding speed, and for many companies the struggle to keep up with the constant changes demanded by new developments can be extremely burdensome.
A simple example in the case of customer-facing assets is the emergence of social media as a platform for sales, marketing and customer service. This requires a new skill set, as well as a reimagining of business policies and processes.
Without clear guidelines and objectives, it’s easy for the lines of responsibility to become blurred, resulting in compliance officers taking on too many tasks without the necessary resources to get their jobs done efficiently and accurately, and ultimately, losing sight of their key objectives.
So how do you tell if your compliance system is heading forward, or declining into irrelevance?
It will come as no surprise to any compliance officer that the skill sets they must possess often stray far from any “textbook” definition of the job. What they may not consider is that, at times, their job may have a lot in common with the more exotic skill sets required of spies, gamblers, and diplomats.
Compliance officers are often treated as the corporate equivalent of a Swiss Army knife—a multi-disciplined tool ready to handle any problem shuffled upon them. The compliance officer is expected to be multi lingual in the sense that he or she is speaking the languages of lawyers, regulators, HR, auditors, bankers, investors, and whatever other specialists populate the marketplace and supply chain.