Businesses are tasked daily to increase revenue and maintain profit margins. With today’s economy a competitive edge no matter how minuscule can be the difference between a win and a loss. We see this in retail, in the job market, in manufacturing and now in security and compliance.

I know. It’s hard to even think of the money spent on compliance as any kind of competitive advantage. But stop for a moment. There are two factors here: First, continuous compliance reduces the cost of being compliant. Second, by ingraining continuous compliance into our business culture it erases the perceived burden. If we changed our approach to security and compliance and made it less about passing the audit and more about business strategy and protecting the organizations information assets the competitive edge is much clearer. By protecting our customer data we are telling our customers that we value them.

Continuous compliance removes the fire drill mentality, lessens the cost, and empowers your IT department and enterprise as a whole. Recently I ran across a case study on Wells Fargo and their continuous auditing program that shared concrete metrics to prove this. It indicated that they saved “$400,000 in travel expenses and reduced budgeted hours by 23,500 annually.” This is huge and a time and money savings that every organization should strive for! So move beyond the point-in-time audit check mark. Create a dynamic, proactive compliance program, and flaunt your competitive edge.

Share your successes, struggles and ideas on Continuous Compliance. We would love to hear from you!