What are the Roles and Responsibilities of Compliance Managers and Committee?

In the modern-day market and workplace, risk is a part and parcel of business operations. Considering the shift to remote working, threats and potential vulnerabilities are ever present, which is why risk management is now a top priority. As a matter of fact, in 2021, General Data Protection Regulation fines rose by around 40%. Big names like the Marriott and British Airways incurred fines of $23.8 million and $26 million, respectively, for data breaches. This is the cost of poor risk assessment and management controls in today’s economic climate. Thankfully, auditors and risk management teams can get ahead of such problem areas with clearly defined key risk indicators (KRIs).

Today’s organizations face a plethora of challenges managing compliance, keeping up with internal policies, and improving social security practices. Needless to say, that managing compliance and risk management programs manually is a painful task. Fortunately, there is an influx of software applications in the compliance and risk management space claiming to reduce compliance and risk managers’ pain. However, an unintuitive GRC platform laden with poor user experience will only add to problems.

Good governance is important for the smooth and effective functioning of the organization. It is a broader concept; and includes oversight and practices to establish an organization’s strategic direction and achieve its purpose and make the best use of available resources.

The mention of the very word audit evokes panic for business owners and compliance officers. You might be surprised to know that auditing can become a painful experience even for the auditors. Tight audit budgets, number of policies to flick through, lack of cooperation from stakeholders can all cause auditors’ obstacles.

In a world where efficiency is king, it comes as no surprise that the practice of workflow automation is as popular as it is. Every process has some form of workflow to go through, and these often include several manual tasks, which increase risk exposure due to their inherently error-prone nature. Workflow automation addresses this lack, working on a company-wide scale. For instance, as per data published by the Annuitas Group, marketing and process automation drew in a 417 % increase in revenue.

Gartner research shows that only the better-prepared enterprise firms developed contingency plans much before situations worsened in the wake of the unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic. With obvious management and operational risks, and additional cybersecurity risks (there was a 273% rise in cyber attacks in Q1 alone), risk management has become essential for enterprises to both survive and thrive.

In a highly competitive environment that thrives on doing anything and everything it takes to succeed, ethics are a key system used to govern business operations. Business ethics, by definition, is a system of beliefs that serves to guide a business organization and the individuals within that organization. These largely revolve around the behaviors, decisions, and values of all involved, and are sometimes incorporated into regulatory norms.

We know that good governance is the culmination of robust internal controls. Risk management specialists and compliance officers always speak about implementing internal controls. What exactly is the definition of internal controls? The federal security law, Section 13(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 provides a clear definition of internal controls interns of accounting and bookkeeping:

Every organization faces certain types of risks in business. Any factor that threatens an organization’s ability to achieve its goal is considered a business risk. The major categories of risks to consider are: strategic risks, compliance risks, financial risks, and operational risks. Another important way to categorize risk is based on the source of the risk and see whether they are internal or external risks.