Until very recently, the compliance process was fragmented by nature. It involved myriad steps, activities, and tasks handled across disparate systems, further complicated by the fact that compliance work travels through several departments and lines of business.
There have been attempts at partial automation to help unify these efforts, including use of Excel spreadsheets, GRCs, and various point solutions. Even with these tools, however, businesses fall prey to the gaps inherent in a disjointed environment, which hamper their ability to keep up with regulatory events, implement policy internally, and provide clear evidence of compliance to auditors.
Defining end-to-end compliance
Due to its relative newness, the term ‘end-to-end (E2E) compliance’ is often met with a combination of excitement, skepticism, and confusion over what it is and how it can be achieved.
At its core, E2E simply describes a process that takes a service from beginning to end, delivering a complete, functional system.
E2E compliance is a fully traceable process that connects external regulatory events to a business’ specific obligations, then all the way through to that business’ internal controls, policies, and procedures.
This process, which can only be achieved through automation, covers both existing regulations and new rules or changes, thereby integrating horizon scanning and change management into the overall flow.
In an ideal E2E compliance system, businesses could 1) be alerted to relevant new rules or rule changes, 2) be directed to the exact parts of their internal controls or policies and procedures that are impacted so team members can make appropriate changes, 3) manage their obligations digitally, 4) easily produce a record of their compliance activities, and 5) generate useful reporting dashboards.
E2E compliance as a pathway to better business
E2E unlocks exciting opportunities. Automating the bulk of the manual tasks that plague the regulatory change management process (e.g., scouring rules for your specific obligations and connecting them to internal policies) saves time and reduces the risk of errors that lead to fines, suspensions, reputational damage. In addition, alerts on applicable new or updated rules help your compliance team remain current, while automated audit trails and reporting capabilities take the anxiety out of regulatory examinations.
A study of other industries proves the achievability of E2E. Marketing was among the first industries to widely adopt automation and AI technologies on a massive scale. Today, literally thousands of MarTech solutions are available that help businesses compile a 360-degree view of their customers, as well as produce and distribute hyper-targeted marketing messages based on demography, geography, behavior, intent, and a whole slew of other markers.
The shipping and logistics industry has also made incredible advancements in this area. Today’s E2E shipping and logistics processes combine multiple, integrated solutions to track and manage inventory, storage, and distribution, giving the business complete visibility into every detail, down to whether one of their trucks should turn right or left depending on traffic patterns and delivery schedules.
As E2E has transformed industries like marketing and shipping, so will compliance. It’s not a question of if; it’s happening right now. The main question today is will the laggards suffer the same fates as those in marketing and logistics who failed to see the writing on the wall.
