Editor’s note: The following is a sponsored blog post from A-LIGN's:
There’s a seismic shift taking place in the world of cybersecurity and compliance. By 2025, an expected 60% of organizations will use cybersecurity risk as a primary determinant in conducting third-party transactions and business engagements. This means more organizations will seek to earn compliance certifications to remain competitive in the marketplace.
Undergoing the process of a compliance audit or attestation is no easy task. Most audits require a monetary investment (with a third-party auditor) and require a time-intensive process to review documentation and internal processes. To ease the burden on internal resources (and the time investment), many organizations have started incorporating automation technology into their compliance processes.
Here’s why now is the time to embrace — and incorporate — automation technology.
What’s Behind the Rise in Automation Technology
A-LIGN routinely surveys hundreds of professionals about their compliance programs in hopes of better understanding how organizations strive to improve their compliance management processes.
The 2022 Compliance Benchmark report revealed a rise in popularity among automation solutions. In 2021, only 25% of surveyed organizations used automation software to prepare for their audits and assessments. In 2022, that number jumped to 72%.
The rise in popularity can be mainly attributed to the increased awareness around the existence of automation technology. Last year, compliance technology began appearing on many “essential trends” lists, capturing the attention of curious audiences looking to extend their resources.
Three Benefits of Compliance Automation Technology
The increased usage of compliance automation technology can also be attributed to the host of benefits it provides organizations that choose to adopt these tools.
1. Do More with Less
With limited staff resources and even more limited budgets, more organizations have turned to automation to help them do more with less.
Previously, employees would have to spend lots of time gathering supporting materials and organizing the collected items for auditors. Now, employees can use automation technology to do the work in much less time, freeing them up to focus on other important priorities.
2. Streamline the Audit Process
In general, many organizations have been approaching audits the same way for the past 15 years, manually inputting all of the information required to complete an audit.
As a result of how highly involved compliance audits are to begin with, organizations might not have realized how many audits now require organizations to input even more information than they did a decade ago. This puts more pressure on the organizations undergoing certification.
Even though a licensed auditor is still needed to conduct an audit, automation technology can assist in multiple areas of the compliance audit process — like evidence collection, project management and continuous monitoring.
For example, an SOC 2 audit requires hundreds of pieces of evidence to be collected. Not only can an automation tool gather this information on its own, but it can also upload the information where it’s needed. Certain automation tools can also store information for future audits, so when it comes time to renew, you don’t have to restart the process from the beginning.
3. Scale Your Compliance Efforts
Automation tools can also scale alongside an organization. For example, say your organization recently earned an SOC 2 report, but now wants to work with more partners in the federal government. In order to gain these new customers, you need FedRAMP certification.
Some compliance software, like A-LIGN's compliance automation tool A-SCEND, can assist with multiple audit requirements. For example, automation technology can take all of the evidence you collected for SOC 2 and review which documents also apply to the SOC 1 or FedRAMP process. Not only does this save you time – potentially up to 100+ hours, depending on the compliance framework – but it also helps you see how close you already are to completing other audits.
How to Implement Compliance Automation Tools
As companies continue to place heavier emphasis on the cybersecurity posture of partner organizations, partners may feel it’s hard to keep up with the ever-evolving requirements. Automation technology is the best way to keep up with growing demands.
This isn’t to dismiss the valid concerns many companies have about integrating a new system into their technology stack. Adopting any sort of software can pose the risk of introducing a potentially vulnerable tool into your work stack. Others may be put off by the thought of having to learn the ins and outs of a new tool, especially when they’ve grown accustomed to the same practices they’ve used for years.
In order to assuage some of the initial hesitations that come from incorporating a new software, organizations should take the time to thoroughly research an automation tool before they purchase it. In particular, the organization should look into security features to make sure the new automation technology fits within the organization’s existing security guidelines.
From there, the organization should provide ample training for those who will use the automation technology. Gaining familiarity with the tool will minimize the risk of misuse and will allow the user to see the value of the technology first-hand.
Getting Started with Automation
Automated technology offers us the opportunity to take a major step forward in streamlining compliance effort today and in the future. Automation allows organizations to more efficiently obtain and maintain their compliance certifications.
As audit requirements expand and more organizations pursue multiple compliance certifications, automation tools will continue to remain one of the simplest ways to make obtaining compliance certifications more accessible.