Managing business continuity and information security in times of digital transformation necessarily involves risk management and compliance. These two concerns are crucial for companies to remain modern, stable and healthy in the market, with internal alignment adjusted to the best protection practices.
These concepts are similar and can therefore be confused. In this sense, the ideal is to learn what each one entails and understand how they work together. In addition, in order to guarantee this stability and protection of all layers, the company needs to know how to get external help and the importance of this.
If you want to get to know the subject in depth, follow all the topics below.
What is risk management and compliance?
Let's start by clarifying the definitions. Risk management is a reorganization of the company to deal with uncertainties and threats to the development of projects and internal processes. In other words, it is a way of allocating resources efficiently, taking into account the main dangers that could interrupt activities and generate losses.
Management begins with identifying these unforeseen events, which makes the company realize what the specific dangers are for each context. These can be environmental, physical, financial, digital and even caused by the people working in the environment.
Management then moves on to the phase of evaluating these threats, determining the level of impact of each one. In this way, it is possible to separate the risks and classify them according to the degree of consequence they generate. After all, they are not all the same and should not be treated like that.
From this, the internal team can define contingency actions for each of the hazards, with priority being given to the biggest problems. In this way, everyone will be prepared for an eventuality.
Thus, this management is a way of balancing goals with the dangers that run counter to them. With this preventive management, teams can maintain productivity by mitigating these external or internal factors and executing response plans when they arise.
Compliance
Compliance, on the other hand, is the adaptation to pre-established laws and norms. The company adjusts itself to comply with the requirements and manages all the systems and methods to ensure compliance. The aim is to prevent fines, compensation and problems with inspection bodies.
It's important to note that compliance also includes obedience to internal rules. In this way, it is a way of standardizing processes in order to align them with regulations. With compliance, companies are able to combat fraud, corruption, inconsistencies in policies and security vulnerabilities.
The big advantage is establishing clarity and transparency for stakeholders. In this way, the organization becomes more valuable and efficient for its customers, achieves better agreements and partnerships with stakeholders, as well as better credibility in the market.
Compliance is structured into three main stages: prevention, detection and correction. The first phase deals with preventive actions, which seek to prepare for the risks of non-compliance.
It also defines the creation of plans and policies to facilitate the process. Detection focuses on identifying loopholes and problems that still exist, while correction is the application of punishments and adjustments to combat the lack of alignment.
What are the challenges of compliance management?
When we talk about compliance, it's interesting to explore the main challenges faced by companies. One of them is a lack of visibility. Many managers are unable to have a broad view and control over the use of systems, the practices of employees, as well as information security as a whole.
This also includes shadow IT and the lack of control over assets. This lack of clarity undermines control and affects the organization's alignment.
Another issue is the lack of data and systems integration. Some companies still work with siloed systems, with sectors that work in isolation and communicate little with each other. In this way, it is difficult to achieve agility by working together, as well as a vision that facilitates compliance.
It is more complicated to achieve alignment when each sector works to its own rules. This isolation creates a communication bottleneck, which becomes an obstacle to compliance.
The lack of cultural support is another factor worth mentioning. In other words, for a company to implement a compliance policy and achieve good results, it needs to reorganize its culture and the way operations are carried out, as well as everyone's mindset.
Taking information security laws as an example, we can see this. If members and teams don't work with a culture focused on data protection and privacy control, it will be even more difficult to comply with the regulations that deal with the subject. It will be a challenge for management to ensure the alignment necessary for compliance to happen.
Similarly, a lack of training for team members on the laws also hampers compliance. If teams don't master the principles of the regulations and don't know how to apply them, the adaptation effort will face greater difficulties. This challenge must be dealt with through communication and clear adaptation plans.
What are the differences between risk management and compliance?
To further our understanding of the relationship between risk control and compliance, let's examine the differences between the concepts. One is that risk management is strictly preventive work.
In other words, it is a set of actions that seeks to deal with threats before they happen, in order to prepare the company for contingency situations. It is different from a corrective approach, which only deals with dangers when they arise.
This proactivity also differs from compliance, which is a more prescriptive strategy. Thus, the focus is on obeying the rules and laws that have already been determined. While risk management works directly with the prevention of threats as an end, compliance deals with this prevention as a means to achieve adaptation to standards.
In addition, when working with the management of possible dangers, there is a clear effort to define and detail the threats, with their implications and characteristics. In compliance management, on the other hand, the view of the problems is more general, with a balanced focus on the prescriptions laid down by higher bodies.
Why align risk management with compliance?
Despite the differences, it is possible and advantageous to combine risk management with compliance. In fact, hazard management can be one of the stages in adapting compliance, which generates better results.
By controlling risks from a more preventive perspective, companies are better able to deal with compliance challenges and ensure efficiency. For example, it is possible to gain greater visibility into threats and the use of systems internally, which helps speed up the process of adapting to regulations.
The company can also combine the two approaches by applying non-compliance management and studying, identifying, evaluating and monitoring loopholes in legal compliance. It is also feasible to use a data-driven strategy to analyze and gain insights into the application of compliance measures.
After all, as we have already seen, risk management makes it possible to understand the impact, frequency and probability of a threat. When applied with compliance, leadership ensures a complete and proactive view of compliance errors.
This control of loopholes is essential to make the process more transparent and easier to follow. Compliance is thus able to align all members and becomes a mission for everyone involved to optimize adaptation to the market and best practices.
For managers, internal control, combined with IS (information security) governance, compliance and threat management, is crucial to boosting data protection and keeping systems stable and healthy at all times.
How to implement internal controls?
In this topic, we'll work through some practical tips on how to implement internal controls for information technology compliance, risk control and internal efficiency.
Drawing up policies and plans
One of the recommendations is to create security policies and a compliance plan. With an adaptation program, management ensures a way of documenting concerns and steps to achieve the desired level of compliance.
This way, each member will understand what they need to do to help achieve this goal. The plan can include codes of conduct with well-defined rules so that people know what they have to follow.
In other words, it is a good idea to translate the standards into a clear form of communication in order to align the teams and achieve success in this process. Policies, on the other hand, should include good protection and security practices, as well as data care in order to follow the risk management definitions.
Carrying out inventories
Likewise, it is interesting to use inventories to ensure a broader view of all the company's systems. This report should include IoT devices, software and hardware in order to help the company manage and control them.
This way, it will be feasible to keep all the equipment up to date with updates and maintenance. With this, managers will be able to maintain compliance with security laws, manage the health of their systems, licenses and other issues.
An example of what happens when there is a lack of inventory is negligence in controlling the useful life of an asset. This leaves the company unprepared in the event of downtime, which can lead to instability and even compromise safety.
Empowering members
Training all employees is very important. So be sure to invest in training employees in the general laws that apply to the company and the need for compliance and risk management. It is essential that they are aligned and prepared to embrace this mission and prioritize IT security.
Using reports
Reports on the compliance and uncertainty control process are another essential tip. They help to generate visibility over the stages and ensure that what is happening is properly monitored.
In this sense, it is also worth highlighting the importance of monitoring adaptation and risk management, always identifying points that need to be adjusted in order to continuously improve processes.
Identifying risks
As we have already mentioned, identifying threats is a step that cannot be neglected. It is essential that the leadership is able to organize itself to explore all the possible risks to which the company is subject, in order to analyze, evaluate and monitor these uncertainties. This also applies to compliance errors in all relevant areas.
Set up communication channels
Setting up communication channels is another good tip. They should be used to report points that are not in compliance and loopholes in adaptation. This will reinforce that compliance is a group effort, by everyone involved in the mission.
Aligning suppliers and partners
It is also important to ensure that suppliers and partners are aligned when it comes to controlling risks and adapting to standards. After all, they are linked to the use of data and systems, as well as participating in the company's processes.
So you have to make sure that they know their obligations, embrace this process and organize themselves to comply with the established policies.
How important is a consultancy?
Given everything we've said, it's clear that risk management and compliance control are complex and costly tasks. They require data analysis, expertise in the various existing regulations, the ability to predict scenarios, among other factors. For this reason, an interesting solution is to rely on the support of a consultancy specializing in the subject.
The consultancy will offer know-how on the subject, as well as the support of experienced employees who will help your company identify the right strategies for these demands.
In addition, the support will help identify the ideal technologies to deal with monitoring, analytics and management of possible dangers. You can always rely on the most modern and robust technologies.
The partner's help will help ensure that the internal team is not overloaded, as well as helping to increase precision in security-related activities. In addition, the external team will help with specific training to combat doubts and prepare your employees.
Risk management and compliance involve the organization taking overall care of its processes and data. By working towards prevention and proactivity, the company is able to anticipate the main problems and guarantee efficient and safe administration, adapted to general standards and prevention of threats and uncertainties. The result is greater security, stability and profitability.
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