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By Adam Schaub, Vice President, Platform Product Management, RegEd |
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The following is excerpted from “Understanding the value of enterprise compliance technology”, Adam Schaub – RegEd VP of Product Management, published in full in the Journal of Securities Operations & Custody Volume 14 Number 1 (© Henry Stewart Publications). The content on this page has been edited for conciseness but the full peer-reviewed article is also available through RegEd.
As with most major expenditures, firms evaluate an enterprise compliance solution in terms of its value. But accurately assessing the value of an enterprise solution is challenging because compliance technology offers qualitative benefits as well as quantitative. Although returns such as cost savings and productivity gains can be measured rather easily, benefits such as fines avoided and a strong culture of compliance are harder to quantify.
Generally, firms measure solutions in terms of the effectiveness, efficiency, and experience they receive in return for their investment, with regulatory compliance fulfillment being a connective force between these measurements. Effectiveness relates to how well a solution mitigates risk, efficiency assesses how well it does so over a period of time, and experience influences the ability to recruit and retain financial professionals and compliance staff. Or, stated another way, effectiveness is how well a built-for-purpose compliance solution allows a firm to focus on doing the right things, efficiency is the capability for doing things right that the technology creates, and experience relates to its enabling people to do the right things in the right way.
Benefits of an enterprise compliance platform
Comprehensive enterprise platforms enable firms to effectively, efficiently, and completely meet compliance obligations, proactively manage their compliance programs, mitigate risk, and cultivate cultures of compliance.
More specifically, an enterprise compliance platform has the potential to:
- Increase productivity, reduce the chances of human error, prevent duplicate records, improve communication both internally and with regulators, and empower better decision-making capabilities by establishing a single source of truth for data.
- Reduce operating costs and enhance efficiency by automating manual processes.
- Mitigate the risks of breaches, including any resulting fines and/or reputational damage, by improving data accuracy.
- Reduce overall regulatory risk to the firm and accelerate revenue generation by generating new data insights and releasing scarce human resources to pursue opportunities as they emerge.
- Provide greater control over the firm’s books & records and data, more empowerment to manage permissions and access controls, and enhanced information security.
- Empower financial professionals and compliance staff to efficiently complete regulatory obligations, be proactive and focused on their primary obligations, and demonstrate the firm’s compliance culture to regulators.
In terms of ROI factors, built-for-purpose compliance solutions are typically more effective than manual processes or internal systems because they reduce human error, can be optimized for regulations and a firm’s written supervisory procedures, and are more easily communicated, understood, and adjusted. They are also more efficient because they consume fewer resources, allowing firms to focus internal teams on value-adding work instead of mundane tasks. And, in the case of integrated enterprise compliance platforms, they provide the seamless experience that financial professionals and compliance staff expect from leading firms.
Factors in determining a return
When measuring the ROI of an enterprise compliance platform, firms must acknowledge the pain points that have been resolved, the opportunities that have been created, and the efficiencies that have been gained. In other words, while ROI stands for return on investment, firms should not discount the importance of the return on integrity, innovation, and inertia.
Many firms find that an enterprise compliance platform and the culture of compliance that it creates make a firm more efficient and cost-effective, while also reducing risk and enhancing the experience of financial professionals and administrators alike.
Although some of the returns can be captured on a spreadsheet, such as the savings that could come from buying an enterprise platform rather than purchasing multiple point solutions or building and maintaining systems with internal resources, or the value of time that staff would gain if a manual process were automated, a firm must look for additional ways to determine its returns.
Whether they are factors such as assessing how easy it would be to scale a system if the firm were to make an acquisition, demonstrating how financial professionals and administrators could better perform their jobs, noting how much faster and sooner compliance questionnaires or branch-audit close-out letters would be completed, or considering the fines that could be avoided by complying with regulations more effectively, firms should consider the quantitative and qualitative benefits that an enterprise compliance platform offers.
After all, immeasurable results like building integrity or advancing innovation matter as much as – if not more than – realizing savings or increasing efficiency.
RegEd’s industry-leading enterprise compliance platform delivers more than 20 integrated compliance and credentialing solutions that enable automation across a wide range of critical compliance and business processes, driving effectiveness, efficiency, and a seamless experience across the organization. Schedule a demonstration to learn more about how our solutions help firms optimize compliance, manage risk, and enable growth.
This article is excerpted from “Understanding the value of enterprise compliance technology”, Adam Schaub – RegEd VP of Product Management, published in full in the Journal of Securities Operations & Custody Volume 14 Number 1 (© Henry Stewart Publications). Download the article from RegEd’s website if you would like to read it in full.
About RegEd
RegEd is the market-leading provider of RegTech enterprise solutions with relationships with more than 200 enterprise clients, including 80% of the top 25 financial services firms.
Established in 2000 by former regulators, the company is recognized for continuous regulatory technology innovation with solutions hallmarked by workflow-directed processes, data integration, regulatory intelligence, automated validations, business process automation, and compliance dashboards. The aggregate drives the highest levels of operational efficiency and enables our clients to cost-effectively comply with regulations and continuously mitigate risk.
Trusted by the nation’s top financial services firms, RegEd’s proven, holistic approach to RegTech meets firms where they are on the compliance and risk management continuum, scaling as their needs evolve and amplifying the value proposition delivered to clients. For more information, please schedule a consultation.