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Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit

Don’t gamble recklessly with external compliance. Play a winning system and take calculated risks to stack the odds in your favor.

  • Most enterprises view compliance as a "must-do" expense rather than a "should-do," value-added activity.
  • IT is often left out of compliance discussions and is unaware of compliance requirements or non-compliance gaps.
  • Organizations generally wait to improve compliance until mandated changes are dictated following an adverse audit or assessment.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Don’t gamble recklessly with external compliance. Play a winning system and take calculated risks to stack the odds in your favor.
  • Take an agile approach to analyze your gaps and prioritize your remediations. You don’t always have to be fully compliant as long as your organization understands and can live with the consequences.

Impact and Result

Approach compliance proactively and derive value from the process by managing your compliance initiatives using a constant cycle.

  • You need to initiate the drive to conform with regulations and improve compliance.
  • You need to consistently assess the regulatory and business landscape to determine your compliance gaps.
  • You need to improve compliance and remediate non-compliance in an effective, tactical manner.
  • You need to confirm and assure compliance through regular adherence checks.

Info-Tech’s framework presented in this blueprint is compliant with COBIT MEA03 – Monitor, Evaluate, and Assess Compliance with External Compliance.


Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit Research & Tools

1. Launch the project

Make the case and launch the compliance project.

2. Perform a gap analysis

Identify compliance requirements and prioritize non-compliance gaps.

3. Remediate non-compliance gaps

Improve non-compliance and document management gaps.

4. Confirm compliance

Assure and confirm compliance through interviews and audits.


Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

7.0/10


Overall Impact

$2,599


Average $ Saved

5


Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

State of Wyoming

Guided Implementation

7/10

$2,599

5

Love having a sounding board who can readily digest my challenges and offer their own experiences of what has worked for them in the past. Would h... Read More

Government of Cayman Islands

Guided Implementation

10/10

$47,750

20

Andy Woyzbun was very knowledgeable which he provided valuable feedback is resourceful for moving the Cayman Islands Government Computer Services D... Read More

ISG Central Services Ltd.

Guided Implementation

7/10

N/A

N/A


External Compliance

Don't gamble recklessly with external compliance. Play a winning system and take calculated risks to stack the odds in your favor.
This course makes up part of the Security & Risk Certificate.

Now Playing:
Academy: External Compliance | Executive Brief

An active membership is required to access Info-Tech Academy
  • Course Modules: 5
  • Estimated Completion Time: 2-2.5 hours
  • Featured Analysts:
  • David Yackness, Sr. Research Director, CIO Practice
  • James Alexander, SVP of Research and Advisory, CIO Practice

Workshop: Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Launch Proactive Compliance

The Purpose

  • Identify areas for compliance improvement.
  • Identify benefits of compliance management.
  • Identify: compliance priority, capability, budget, capacity requirements, and resource constraints.
  • Establish External Compliance Management Working Group and compliance goals.
  • Establish a starting point for compliance improvement. 

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Clearly defined pain points of compliance management.
  • Defined compliance improvement plan.
  • Defined compliance team, mandate, scope, and goals for compliance improvement. 

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Define scope and mandate of compliance committee.

  • Defined project charter.
1.2

Define roles and responsibilities.

  • Defined roles and responsibilities.
1.3

Establish compliance goals.

  • Defined compliance goals.

Module 2: Assess Compliance

The Purpose

  • Identify relevant regulatory requirements.
  • Determine a change management process.
  • Determine compliance gaps within a limited workshop scope.
  • Prioritize compliance gaps based on risk likelihood and impact. 

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Defined regulatory requirements.
  • Determined change management process.
  • Identified compliance gaps.
  • Prioritized gaps.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Define regulatory requirements.

  • List of relevant regulations.
2.2

Define change management process.

  • Assigned change management owner.
2.3

Conduct a sneak audit and prioritize gaps.

  • List of prioritized compliance gaps (within limited workshop scope).

Module 3: Remediate Non-Compliance

The Purpose

  • Determine plausible remediation plans for high priority gaps.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Planned remediation measures.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Determine remediation plans.

  • List of remediation plans.

Module 4: Confirm Compliance

The Purpose

  • Confirm and assure compliance.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Identify recurring compliance gaps.
  • Confirm adherence to remediation.
  • Assure compliance.  

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Conduct stakeholder interviews.

  • List of recurring gaps.
4.2

Conduct sneak audit.

  • List of root causes.
4.3

Conduct external/internal formal audit.

  • Official findings.
Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

MEMBER RATING

7.0/10
Overall Impact

$2,599
Average $ Saved

5
Average Days Saved

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.

Read what our members are saying

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Launch
  • Call 1: Make the case
  • Call 2: Launch the project

Guided Implementation 2: Gap Analysis
  • Call 1: Identify regulatory requirements
  • Call 2: Conduct gap analysis
  • Call 3: Prioritize gaps

Guided Implementation 3: Remediation
  • Call 1: Develop remediations
  • Call 2: Improve evidentiary document management

Guided Implementation 4: Confirmation
  • Call 1: Confirm compliance
  • Call 2: Introduction to audit

Authors

Josh Mendelssohn

Dana Tessler

Contributors

  • Heriot Prentice, Director of Technology Operations Review, Brown & Brown
  • Glen Notman, Associate Partner, Citihub
  • Tony Noblett, SVP CISO, Urban Lending Solutions
  • Carter Cameron-Huff, Consultant, Enterprise Risk Services, MNP LLP
  • Ashley Moore, Policy & Planning Program Director, Broadcasting Board of Governors
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