Organizations are recognizing that data security compliance is a foundational element of any successful business. The demand for compliance officers, IT security professionals and data protection officers is growing; spending on compliance programs is increasing; and businesses are treating compliance as a key part of their overall strategy.
Some compliance teams are still struggling to secure the resources and personnel needed to build a robust and proactive compliance program. Getting executive buy-in and changing processes to address compliance risks are still very real challenges.
In this blog, we’ve compiled some of the most important compliance statistics that can help you better understand the state of compliance in organizations similar to yours.
Current state of compliance
Too many organizations still view compliance as a cost of doing business rather than an investment. According to the Netwrix IT Trends Report, only a third of organizations view compliance as their core priority.
A Globalscape study shows that most organizations conduct 1 or more internal compliance audit each year, while the lowest total compliance costs are achieved by organizations that conduct 5 or more internal compliance audits per year. GDPR compliance is considered the most difficult to achieve. PCI DSS, various US state laws, Sarbanes-Oxley and country-level regulations are also viewed as difficult or very difficult to meet (Globalscape).
Paying for non-compliance
If organizations do not engage in proactive compliance efforts, they end up paying in other ways — through penalties, reputational issues and product delays.
Penalties come in multiple forms: financial fines, limitations on activities, additional barriers to approval and even prison. Even if your organization is not slapped with a penalty, an investigation by a government body will cost you many hours of work and/or legal and contractor fees. According to Globalscape, non-compliance costs businesses an average of $4,005,116 in revenue losses. Moreover, these costs are constantly increasing, having 45% growth since 2011 (Diligent Compliance).
Finding the right staff
The compliance team is responsible for ensuring their organization complies with government regulations and avoids missteps that could result in fines, legal ramifications and reputation damage. They also make sure that employees are following internal compliance policies.
To achieve these goals, they need to assess IT risks, create plans to mitigate them, and provide regular reports on the effectiveness of compliance measures. Having a compliance leader in the C-suite saves businesses $1.25 million on average (Globalscape).
Implementing compliance best practices
While many of compliance best practices require considerable investments up front, that investment will pay off and ultimately help save organization’s money. If your management team, compliance team, and IT department are willing to be consistent with these practices, you can potentially save your company millions of dollars (Globalscape Cost of Compliance Study) by implementing the best practices:
- Conducting regular compliance audit
- Having a compliance charter in place
- Implementing governance, risk and compliance technologies
The compliance landscape is constantly changing, and developing a compliance program that can adapt to those changes is one of the key challenges compliance professionals are facing. Using the statistics we’ve provided in this blog, you can determine where your compliance program may be lacking and develop a plan for shoring up your program to meet the challenges of the coming year.
