What is Compliance Automation: How to Automate Compliance Process

According to a compliance risk study conducted by Accenture, 93% of respondents agreed that AI and cloud compliance programs and tools remove human error, automate manual tasks, and prove more effective and efficient. Regulatory authorities bring new rules and policies into effect frequently, and the increasing complexity of the compliance environment demands that technology take a more active role. 

Hence, forward-thinking organizations have understood that compliance process automation is the only way ahead. In this blog, we cover what compliance automation is and how it can be a game-changer for your company.

TL;DR Compliance automation monitors your cybersecurity measures constantly to adhere to industry regulations and provide real-time gap reports.  Automating a compliance process involves mapping controls to framework requirements, implementing security policies, conducting risk assessments, and collecting evidence.  Examples of compliance process automation includes risk management, regulatory and corporate compliance, monitoring security control, and audit trail management.

What is Compliance Automation?

Compliance automation is the process of leveraging technology to automate predictable compliance tasks, simplify audit readiness, ensure accurate compliance checks, and reduce manual effort to become compliant with common industry standards and regulatory frameworks. 

Compliance automation is a centralized solution using rule-based logic and triggers to execute and speed up the compliance process. It simplifies compliance procedures and security practices by reducing manual workflows and providing real-time data.

A compliance automation software automates activities like evidence collection, policy rollout, internal gap analysis, and risk mitigation. It maps internal controls and policies to the requirements of industry standards like ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS.

Automated regulatory compliance uses software systems to streamline and manage an organization’s adherence to relevant laws and regulations. It tracks regulatory changes, implements controls, generates automated alerts for threats, and creates compliance reports. 

Why is Compliance Automation Required?

Compliance automation makes your cybersecurity system more cost-effective and efficient by avoiding manual workflows. It enables continuous monitoring of controls to check vulnerabilities and mitigate risks.

Compliance is a huge pain point for many organizations today. According to Accenture’s 2022 Compliance Risk Study, 95% of businesses have established or are trying to build a culture of compliance. Between constantly changing regulations, strained budgets, and security threats, enhancing your compliance posture can feel like an endless game of catch-up. This is precisely why more companies are turning to compliance automation software. 

Here are a few reasons why compliance automation is important:

• Traditional compliance is tedious and time-consuming. Organizations need help to balance day-to-day operations, security issues, risks, budgets, and vendor demands. This makes it hard for employees to focus on important tasks.

• Lack of compliance certifications can hinder business deals, especially for regulations like GDPR. Being non-compliant is a non-starter.

• Compliance automation software compresses months of compliance work into weeks. It makes organizations certification-ready quickly.
  
• Compliance automation software like Sprinto streamlines workflows, provides in-depth risk assessments and enables proactive reporting. This helps organizations address issues proactively and avoid problems.

Check out the complete guide to compliance management

How does compliance automation work?

Compliance automation works by integrating with crucial functions such as cloud service providers, HRMS, and collaboration, automating compliance checks, and alerting teams when non-compliance is noticed. It also helps security and compliance teams gather evidence of compliance and present it for easy auditor consumption.

Automated compliance management can automatically scan systems and infrastructure to identify compliance gaps and vulnerabilities. For example, automation can check that security patches or software updates have been correctly installed to adhere to policies. It can also monitor user access and activity to ensure the separation of duties and least privilege principles are followed.

Built-in remediation capabilities of compliance automation enable you to take corrective actions to security issues. This can identify sensitive data that may violate regulations like ISO 27001 or GDPR if the required security measures are not implemented. The automated reporting provides visibility into compliance status across the organization.

Overall, automating a compliance process aims to reduce compliance efforts on employees. It ensures that systems and processes adhere to relevant regulations and internal policies. This frees up security and compliance teams to focus on higher-level strategy.

Experience the Sprinto advantage: Compliance is challenging. But how do you address the challenges with minimum effort and cost?