Monday, March 03, 2008

Making compliance less PITA

One the most mundane acts that enterprises do everyday is compiling reams of data for compliance purposes. The data painfully extracted and filed, not much attention is paid to it until its time for the next filing. Many CFOs have often rued this fact and some have even confided the futility of this effort. I remember asking them “why don’t you just go use that information for your business purposes as well?”

To which, I am yet to get a convincing reply.

I recently found Brian Scheld and Sean Culbert of IBM debating the same question. I am glad there are like thinkers. Excerpts -

"Slowly, financial institutions have come to the realization that successfully competing in an accelerated, data-clogged business environment requires an enterprise capability that permits them to quickly access, integrate and deliver data that can be used to make lightning-fast decisions related to regulatory compliance, risk management, customer retention and profitability. The trend is called convergence, and it refers to an enterprise-wide alignment of governance, policies and processes to enable the quick and efficient sharing of business information among multiple stakeholders."

"...In essence, data convergence can help financial services institutions link their overall business strategies to their enterprise risk-management strategies by offering a graduated path from basic information-based regulatory compliance to a tighter management of business processes and risk, and then to fully optimized performance and value creation."

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