As someone with a career background in regulatory compliance, I know how overwhelming it feels to review compliance requirements and still have no idea where to start. When running a business, there are so many moving pieces and growing to-do lists that it can be difficult, or even impossible, to set aside the time needed to think about technology and cybersecurity compliance.
If your business is fortunate enough to have internal IT staff, think about how many hours it would take them to:
- Learn and understand each compliance standard
- Research applicable technology for compliance requirements
- Enable and continuously monitor hundreds of network and platform controls
- Complete risk assessments on assets and vendors
- Acquire a depth of knowledge to remediate issues across many different proficiencies
- Draft and implement policies and procedures
- Deploy appropriate staff trainings and achieve 100% completion rate
- Compile evidence of compliance manually via spreadsheets, screenshots, and other documentation
- Work with auditors to mitigate outstanding risks
- Provide reports to stakeholders, including leadership and the Board of Directors
And all of that is on top of their typical daily workload. Thankfully, there is a much simpler way to achieve and manage technology compliance and security. This blog is the first in a three-part series discussing why technology compliance is critical to your business, and how to get compliant without draining financial and staff resources.
The Cost of Getting Compliant
Managing compliance for any business is a full-time job, and frankly, one for which many small to medium-sized companies don’t have the fiscal capacity. When hiring an in-house compliance officer can include a six-digit salary, it’s easy to start weighing the cost of compliance against the cost of a potential fine for noncompliance.
Of course, noncompliance doesn’t just impact audit results; not having appropriate compliance controls in place puts your business at significant risk of cyberattacks, which we’ll discuss more in Part 2 of this series.
The complexities of technology compliance show no sign of slowing down. According to the 2023 Cost of Compliance report by Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence, the volume of regulatory change and compliance requirements placed on businesses is expected to continue increasing, along with the amount of time spent working with auditors and regulatory bodies.
With the latest cybersecurity disclosure rules introduced by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2023, it’s clear that executives, boards, and regulatory authorities should now consider cybersecurity risks as core business risks due to the potential financial impact that poor cybersecurity practices could cause.
Finding industry-specific expertise for your company’s compliance requirements can be challenging without costly in-house compliance staff. If your business is already having difficulty in achieving compliance in standards like HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI, or ISO 27001, it may be time to consider outsourcing your compliance work.
Businesses have increasingly been turning to external partners for their compliance functions, with 43% of U.S. businesses outsourcing compliance in 2023. The Thomson Reuters report points out: “Unless firms have the means to comply with them, regulations are just the evidence in an enforcement case. Continual increases in the number of regulations thus only increase firms’ exposure to compliance and regulatory risk.”
To meet this need, B2B companies like Blip Tech have started offering managed technology compliance and security services to take the burden off of business owners and IT departments while ensuring that technology compliance standards are being achieved.
Blip’s Managed Compliance as a Service
Blip Tech’s Managed Compliance as a Service (MCaaS) program is a comprehensive and scalable solution that handles technology compliance for you, allowing you to focus on your business while keeping staff costs down. Our Compliance and Technical teams work together to not only identify your compliance gaps, but remedy them as well, saving your IT team weeks of work.
Blip Tech partners with Drata, a continuous security and compliance automation platform, which automates and simplifies compliance for any business. Drata integrates with hundreds of existing systems and tools to continuously monitor and collect evidence of controls. Using the Drata platform, all of your compliance information is easily accessible in one location, meaning you (and your stakeholders) will always know your current compliance posture.
When you’re confident in your technology compliance and security, you can be confident in your market position. With Blip Tech’s MCaaS handling compliance, your business is set to land the next big client.
Contact us today at Compliance@BlipHelps.com to find out more and stay tuned for the second installment of this series.
About the Author: Sara is the Co-Founder and Compliance & Communications Director of Blip Business Technologies. She has over a decade of compliance experience in various industries, including education and nonprofits. A lifelong learner, Sara holds master’s degrees in communications and business leadership.
