What is data driven compliance?

Compliance | Data driven | GDPR

Tristan Terlouw

Digital marketing strategy

Data driven compliance

Consent and Preference

Tristan Terlouw

Digital Marketing Strategy Nixon

There are different types of enterprise compliance solutions and how they can help the compliance team better. To make efficient use of software-as-a-service, the availability of good quality data is crucial. Compliance functions therefore benefit from a ‘data driven’ approach.

What is data driven compliance?

Data-driven compliance is becoming an increasingly common word. This is not surprising as data-driven compliance offers many benefits for many companies. Compliance mainly comes down to managing compliance with a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law of compliance risks in the broadest sense. “Data-driven” refers to using large amounts of data to demonstrate and manage compliance within an organization.

Some of the complexity and effort required to improve regulatory compliance comes from working with compliance departments. Data-driven compliance leverages data aggregated at the organizational level to provide deep organizational insight.

What do we mean by data?

What is meant by data? Data is digital information that can be processed or transmitted through digital technology. For example, these technologies, combined with data analytics, can be used to profile, track and mitigate risk from malicious customers. Your data has the potential to effectively ensure your organization’s level of compliance.

Data as a driving force

If your organization is data-driven, it can lead to less complexity. Organizations, especially compliance teams, are then no longer driven by different topics, such as the GDPR, performed or handled by different compliance officers (cubicle structure), but by insights created by data analysis from different angles. In other words, we’ve combined data as the driving force to maintain control on an ongoing basis. By linking the combined data and analysis of data sources, you can focus more on emerging and previously unforeseen risks.

Data-driven monitoring of processes, website portfolio’s and communications are central to data-driven compliance. Risk monitoring becomes more objective, improving compliance. Integration is key here. By using data analytics, different data sources can be linked in an inventive way. Compliance data, news reports and the effectiveness of control measures can then be linked to each other, quickly generating important strategic insights.

From detecting to predicting compliance function

Data driven compliance represents a shift from compliance awareness to predictive capabilities, where organizations will become more responsive to data-driven predictions rather than reacting to past events.

Large companies focus primarily on known risks, often leaving little time to tackle unknown risks. Indeed, the focus should be on both sides of a normal distribution. The risks with the greatest probability are known and existing controls are designed for this. There can be risks on both sides of the normal distribution.

Risks on the left side of the normal distribution have a low impact. Here, data can optimize the identification of existing and less risky risks, which in turn can lead to cost savings. On the right side are the infrequent but potentially high impact risks. In principle, the right side also needs more attention. By using data, the unknown can be made transparent. In turn, more attention can then be paid to infrequent incidents and potentially high-impact future compliance risk scenarios.

Towards a data-driven mindset

How do you transform your organisation’s compliance to a data-driven mindset and operation?

Develop a framework with an integral approach from a data perspective.
Provide compliance employees with courses and training in the field of data analysis. In many organizations, the existing gap between IT and compliance is widening because the compliance function is not keeping up with IT developments.
Break the insular culture within the compliance team. Data analysis should include the entire context and not the `tunnel vision’ of specific compliance topics.
Make sure your organisation has sufficient experienced staff. A broad set of skills is needed to properly secure, scan, index, search, store, organise, distribute, and edit data, and to clearly visualise and communicate data analysis findings.
Be critical of the data gathered – and especially its quantity. After all, more data does not necessarily mean better quality.
Place the use of technologies within the overall organisational strategy – and don’t see it as an ‘add on’.