Regulatory compliance impacts a number of different industries, with many highly-regulated businesses falling within the financial sector, the healthcare space and the insurance industry, amongst others. Non-compliance can lead to significant fines and major penalties which hold the potential to impact an organization’s long-term profitability.
Regulatory compliance must be considered in a variety of different areas, from policies and procedures, to Digital Transformation strategies. In fact, many companies fail to consider how regulatory compliance impacts a Digital Transformation strategy, resulting in a great deal of scope creep and unexpected issues down the road. This begs the question: how do you consider regulatory burdens in a way that helps your company to avoid non-compliance issues as you develop a strategy for your next Digital Transformation project?
How Does Regulatory Compliance Affect Digital Transformation Projects?
Regulatory compliance burdens impact many aspects of a company’s technology, especially when it comes to areas such as data management, security, auditing and reporting. By giving careful thought to these and other ares, you can enjoy a successful Digital Transformation project deployment that improves compliance positioning.
Here are a few areas of Digital Transformation strategy where your business should seriously consider regulatory compliance and what it takes to achieve that compliance.
• Data Management – Data management is a key component of the regulatory compliance landscape. Data management encompasses a broad variety of areas, including user access, data storage, data migration, data encryption, data collection, data auditing, data reporting and data retention. It is important that a company understands how laws, rules and regulations affect their data, especially during the development (or re-development) of a Digital Transformation strategy. For example, nearly a dozen banks were fined a combined $1.8 billion dollars for using WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal and other unapproved, consumer-grade messaging apps. The fines were handed down after it was determined that they did not allow for proper reporting and auditing. Data retention issues led to record keeping law violations too. This illustrates how something as seemingly simple as allowing the use of an instant messaging app for business communications can lead to major regulatory compliance problems.
• Security Measures – Stringent security measures are extremely important for avoiding regulatory non-compliance, especially in the realm of finance, insurance and the healthcare sector. For example, the HIPAA regulations that govern the healthcare space call for very strict security measures to protect patient data, such as firewalls, limited user access and encryption.
• Reporting and Auditing – Many regulatory compliance requirements involve the creation of reports on a quarterly or annual basis. Therefore, your Digital Transformation strategy must include reporting tools or integration with a reporting interface. Auditing capabilities are equally important for proving regulatory compliance in many instances. Remember, all of the effort invested in achieving and maintaining compliance may be wasted if you are unable to prove compliance when the need arises.
Other Tips for Avoiding Regulatory Non-Compliance With the Right Technology
As your business creates a new Digital Transformation strategy or updates an existing approach, you will want to consider the following points to ensure your company stays on track and avoids the fines, penalties and other adverse impacts that are associated with non-compliance.
• Identify all new and existing regulatory compliance burdens. Regulatory oversight is constantly evolving, with new organizations and new requirements arising on a continual basis.
• Determine what your business needs to do in order to achieve and maintain regulatory compliance. Remember that it is not uncommon for a regulatory oversight group to change its requirements for reporting and other measures that must be addressed to be considered compliant.
• Evaluate how the measures required to achieve regulatory compliance may relate to your Digital Transformation strategy. For example, if a group that performs regulatory oversight requires an annual report with comprehensive auditing, you will need to ensure that your data management platform has the proper data retention settings and the necessary reporting and auditing tools. You must draw clear parallels between your strategy and measures that are essential for regulatory compliance.
Many companies find it beneficial to use regulatory compliance software, which can be developed as a stand-alone enterprise software platform or as part of a larger and more comprehensive risk management software system.
Digital Transformation for Maximum ROI
At 7T, we specialize in Digital Transformation, using a collaborative development process that engages the client from the discovery phase to deployment. Our many Digital Transformation service offerings include process automation solutions, enterprise software development for ERP and CRM systems (among others), along with SaaS development for web apps and mobile apps, amongst others. We have extensive experience working with cutting-edge technologies and we help our clients to achieve goals such as scaling and achieving regulatory compliance.
We’re guided by the approach of “Digital Transformation Driven by Business Strategy.” As such, the 7T development team works with company leaders who are seeking to solve problems and drive ROI through Digital Transformation and innovation. We then provide collaborative, multi-phased and impactful Digital Transformation solutions.
7T has offices in Dallas, Houston and Austin, but our clientele spans the globe. If you’re ready to learn more about Digital Transformation and what we can do for your business, contact 7T today.
