No matter how small or large an organization is, they must adhere to compliance obligations requiring them to protect certain types of records. Depending on the industry, the process can be simple or extremely complex—requiring strict adherence to meet the level obligations. Organizations in healthcare, finance, insurance, government, education and life sciences have to deal with increasing number of compliances that are constantly changing and can vary across different municipalities. This includes local, state, national and international regulations.

A new survey conducted by Osterman Research and sponsored by KnowBe4, developer of the  KnowBe4 Compliance Manager (KCM) Software-as-a-Service offering audit management and regulatory compliance, has revealed only 13 percent of organizations are “very satisfied” in regards to managing regulatory compliance issues, even though 67 percent of the respondents believe regulatory compliance is “very important” to their organization.

As organizations make the necessary arrangements to comply with these regulations, they are finding it difficult and expensive. A subset of the same survey has discovered organizations spend $525 per employee annually managing the compliance processes, which translates to more than $261,000 annually for company with 500 employees.

According to Osterman Research, US federal agencies have published an average of 3,827 final rules and 2,445 proposed rules each year between 2002 and 2012. That is more than 14 final rules and nine proposed rules every single day throughout the year, which greatly complicates meeting compliance regulations using manual processes.

Managing the compliance using manual processes is both expensive and time-consuming, the survey points to this fact by stating 19 percent of compliance and audit time every year is spent on tracking requirements, while another 31 percent is for gathering and maintaining audit evidence.  The right automation system organizations will not only save money, but will be able to simplify a process that grows increasingly complex each year because of all the new implemented regulations.

Organizations must focus on compliance issues in a new way; as opposed to auditing each silo individually, a big picture approach will avoid issued experienced in the past. Additionally the report recommends implementing a strong auditing, tracking and reporting capabilities that ensure compliance policies are being met in order to minimize the chance of not violating any of these requirements.

The KCM platform reduces duplicate efforts with an abstraction layer that is able to benefit the organizations compliance staff. Some of the benefits of this technology include:

• Fast setup using self-assessment questionnaires with templates for PCI (News - Alert)-DSS, HIPAA, and other compliance obligations
• Consolidation of multiple regulatory requirements into one list with KnowBe4′s proprietary Controls Reduction Engine (CRE)
• Elimination of duplicate efforts to save time on compliance tasks and reduce compliance costs
• An integrated Compliance Calendar keeping staff members on the path to maintaining compliance through automated alerts
• Adherence to the DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) methodology of assigning specific individuals to audit tasks

“Much of the discontent stems from the focus on manual processes. This is quite cumbersome and expensive. Improving the tracking and gathering of audit evidence alone can help an organization save considerably in both time and budget,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4.