What is Compliance OS?

It shouldn’t be so hard to understand.

Morse code evolved into the modern smartphone, the old Model T’s are today’s Teslas, and instead of paying to see black and white films, we watch Netflix. Along these same lines, GRC tools have transformed how organizations handle compliance, and have opened the door to Compliance OS.

Let’s take a step back.

Compliance leaders in 2023 play a critical role in the organization. The compliance function is at the core of every business process, whether expanding into new markets, new products, partnerships, M&As, and anything else really. This central role is certainly noted in most boardrooms. But being a compliance leader is challenging.

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According to a recent survey, their greatest compliance-related challenges include issues such as lack of manpower (47%), manual work (42%), and lack of budget (29%). 50% of leaders agree that manual work done in silos is the biggest reason for not meeting compliance initiatives. As a result, achieving continuous compliance remains a hope-to-have vision, as compliance teams lack the resources and tools to act strategically and spend their days chasing their tails just to meet the next audit.

Data is the Key to Continuous Compliance

Compliance leaders must be experts in more than just…well, compliance. It’s no longer enough to be the go-to for the organization’s policies and procedures. Compliance is no longer about paperwork, but it requires deep technological understanding. With 64% of compliance leaders reporting that they struggle with a growing tech stack, today’s compliance professionals must be deeply entrenched in the technical aspects that bring value to the business. Considering the ongoing shift to the cloud, they need to deal with more data than ever. This reliance on data is a challenge but also a huge opportunity. Data is the secret sauce to help them achieve the elusive continuous compliance.

The Evolution of Compliance OS

While compliance automation has been in existence for several years already, half of compliance leaders are still complaining about manual work being a main driver for audit delays. Why aren’t the current automation tools delivering on their promises? Why aren't they meeting expectations? To better understand these issues, let's take a look at the evolution of automation in compliance.

The first generation

of an automated approach to compliance revolves around workflow automation of GRC practices. This is where a series of work-related tasks, documents, and information is automatically carried out based on pre-defined business rules. For example, manual compliance-related tasks such as risk assessment reminders, alerts, and notifications can be streamlined to increase efficiency and reduce process redundancies. Workflow automation can be applied to speed up the approval chain and enforce controls such as regulatory disclosure processes and playbooks for security incident response.

The second generation

of automation is built around audit preparation. One of the most manual and time-consuming parts of audit preparation is evidence collection. Tracking down stakeholders responsible for change management processes or system owners responsible for user access provisioning takes a significant amount of organizational time and resources. A more mature compliance automation solution offers automated evidence collection, reducing reliance on stakeholders for information by effectively automating the collection of required data from the enterprise apps and systems. However, this collection is geared toward a single outcome of having a SOC2 or other compliance requirement met. It does not account for the reuse or extensibility of the data collected, making this second generation of GRC automation suitable for less regulated early-stage companies but less for mature ones.

The third generation

or the most advanced level, is the ability to achieve continuous compliance backed by data sourced from the applications that are key to the success to the organization. While some solutions are focused on automating the preparation for a single audit, more advanced solutions enable organizations to be prepared for any audit at any time with ongoing automated evidence collection, analysis, and alerts in the event of any deviations from best practices or organizationally-defined policies. Additionally, friction between teams can be minimized by reusing the sourced data across multiple use cases, thereby getting the most ‘bang for your buck’ out of the data without questioning its integrity.

<span class="blue-box-span"> The Third generation consists of both scalability and maturity, and yet delivers results quickly and doesn’t require costly customizations. It’s about breaking down siloed processes, replacing outdated manual activities with powerful automation, and establishing an underlying fabric via which compliance posture could be monitored and understood at all times. This is where Compliance OS comes in. </span>

What is Compliance OS?

Compliance Operating System (OS) is a central workspace for all compliance activities, where teams can collaborate seamlessly. By leveraging credible data, and applying it to different compliance processes, Compliance OS can reduce the friction between control owners and compliance leaders, and can adeptly support the increasing complexity of meeting and maintaining compliance frameworks and requirements. Instead of being a cost center, compliance becomes a tool for business growth and transparency.

What makes it an Operating System?

An Operating System is any digital workspace that provides users with applications that can be used as needed. Just like on iOS, where users can opt to use apps such as Keynote, Numbers, Pages, or iMovie, inside Compliance OS, users can choose applications based on business requirements with autonomous background processes to support them. Just as you don't need a separate smartphone for each app you use – imagine having different phones for WhatsApp, banking, and Facebook – you should not need multiple platforms for compliance either. Having one workspace enables organizations to address any Security compliance needs, whether for ongoing/daily compliance activities or for audit-specific work.

In Compliance OS, everything is based on structured actual data, as opposed to static data like screenshots, so evidence can be automatically collected from SaaS tools and cloud environments and then normalized and standardized in a compliance repository source of truth. Various top-layer applications correlating to nearly any compliance challenge/requirement can leverage that data evidence to satisfy the compliance action thoroughly and accurately.

For example, when a team needs to adopt new frameworks, they can see how much effort it would take to meet the compliance requirements leveraging the already collected evidence from prior efforts. In other cases, they can leverage the Policy Management module to fully address the automation of review and approvals related to policy lifecycle management. They can also use the audit management application to more easily pass audits like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 in a shared workspace with auditors and stakeholders.

Compliance OS moves beyond being a Compliance tool in that it offers a:

Shared workspace where compliance teams communicate with each other, stakeholders, and auditors for simplified collaboration, and it allows teams to give potential partners a view into their compliance posture to foster trust.

Multi-layered architecture that uses the same data points to achieve their goals. Data received from the Source Layer is then processed and standardized in the Data Layer, thus affecting various apps in the Application Layer.

Deep data integration that leverages raw data to be utilized in different ways to support compliance processes, regardless of its input source or API integration.

Autonomous background processes that alert and trigger specific actions like reminders and reviews, with no input required on the part of the user.

Configuration that offers users a no-code approach for selecting the desired applications and functionality so their compliance requirements can be addressed and satisfied.

Ability to scale along with companies as they adopt frameworks, add more controls, integrate new SaaS tools, and continuously evaluate cloud environments to support their growth.

Who needs Compliance OS?

Not all compliance leaders have the same vision. There are those who want to automate away their problems or get past their first audit in an ad hoc way. But others see themselves as the champion to help their organization meet requirements, protect the business, and find ways to better solve efficiency problems. No matter what size their organization is, these leaders want to be seen as a value driver for the business and understand the importance of scaling beyond their initial framework.

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Core Capabilities of Compliance OS

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What is the potential value of Compliance OS?

Reduce costs and deliver ROI

Obviously, Compliance OS is beneficial because it helps you address risks and streamline costs. Sure, compliance will prevent you from losing deals and partnerships. But its value goes way beyond risk: Compliance OS can deliver significant ROI. An ROI calculator can help you calculate the actual cost of compliance work today and figure out how much you can save by leveraging Compliance OS.

Drive efficiency

And, as we all know, time is also money. Data-powered automation drives high levels of efficiency, enabling you to stop chasing control owners and wasting time performing tasks manually. Enhancing efficiency is a benefit that is especially necessary in the economic landscape of 2023 when resources are limited and all available hands are needed for the more strategic projects constantly being prioritized in hyper-growth companies.

Get a seat at the table

Getting leadership to understand, and then appreciate, the importance of Security compliance activities can be challenging. Compliance OS puts business-impacting insights right at your fingertips, enabling you to clearly communicate the true value of your compliance program to leadership and earn their appreciation. Armed with credible data, you can help leadership view compliance as a business-critical function and secure the backing you need to drive growth.

Become a hero

If stakeholders/control owners have started taking the longer route to the restroom to avoid your desk, the time has come to make changes. Compliance OS makes evidence collection effortless for your colleagues – minimizing manual work and saving them time. You’ll love the improved communication between the internal staff, and you may even make a few new friends in the process.

<span class="blue-box-span">Bottom line: The next evolution in compliance automation must focus on data, processes, and people to become a true value center for the business.</span>

The Next Step: Choosing the right Compliance OS solution?

You now know what Compliance OS is, what it has to offer and its many benefits. With these in mind, your next step should be to decide what is the right compliance automation solution for your organization. Some solutions are tailored for smaller startups, some are designed especially for growing companies, and some focus primarily on enterprises. To help you make the best decision for your organization (and to make sure you can show real ROI), here are some of the questions you should ask yourself when trying to figure out what solution best fits your organization: