MetaSCROLL Integrated Compliance Tracking Application

List of Standards and Regulations currently supported by MetaSCROLL - click HERE

Tracking various information security standards is a complex and time-consuming process. 

Organizations face the significant task of establishing processes to review and comply with the standards they choose or are obligated to follow. This task becomes particularly challenging for entities that must adhere to multiple standards and regulations simultaneously. The solution to this challenge lies in an Integrated Compliance Application, which acts as a facilitator, assisting the organization, and various teams, functions, and groups in adhering to defined processes.

This application plays a crucial role in ensuring that data workflows, information management, task allocation, and documentation align with regulatory and specific standard requirements. By providing a centralized platform, it streamlines compliance processes, allowing seamless coordination among different departments and functions. This integrated approach aids in maintaining consistency, accuracy, and adherence to diverse regulatory and standard demands across the organization.

What is Integrated Compliance Management? 

The process of integrated compliance management signifies an organization's concerted effort to align its operations with the unified objective of meeting compliance across various standards and regulations. This comprehensive approach involves several key stages: implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and conducting internal audits of systems and services. The primary goal is to ensure adherence to established procedures, fulfillment of standard requirements, identification of risks, and adherence to compliance management protocols, corporate guidelines, and regulatory standards.

Integrated compliance management holds significant importance for organizations, as it ensures the security and alignment of their systems with relevant standards. The MetaSCROLL application is designed to offer a comprehensive framework for compliance management. It focuses on providing an integrated platform that can be utilized by various teams and functions within an organization. This facilitates the assurance that their systems are compliant with industry-specific standards and security protocols, fostering a cohesive and aligned approach to compliance across the organization.

Integration Compliance Management Framework – Important Elements

For a compliance management framework to be integrated and effective, there are many elements which are necessary to be implemented, updated and followed, they are explained below. 

These elements are designed for most of the administrative tasks, make all the work in the organization traceable and provide a dashboard with a birds eye view of the compliance status.

1. Formulation of compliance program

For an organization to comply with all the standards and regulations set, there must be a compliance program to follow. The compliance program should have:

Standards- Identify which standards the organization wants to adopt, or standards applicable due to the nature of work, or standards required as part of their ongoing contracts and customer requirements. 

Regulations- Identify which regulations the organization must adhere to as required as part of their ongoing contracts and customer requirements. 

Policies- The policies should be set by the management to be followed by employees in the company. The management should ensure that all entry levels in the organizations follow these policies.

Processes- Depending on the kind of products or services that the company offers to consumers, there should be a list of the process to be followed to ensure that everything is by the regulations.

Training- It is essential for organizations to offer training for their employees. Training is done during the hiring process and also when new procedures and rules are being implemented. Training will remind staff members and help them learn new ways of conducting their business.

Monitoring- There should be a monitoring policy to check if the rules are adhered to. Government or private bodies can do monitoring. The organizations should come up with a monitoring system for all the departments to monitor where the guidelines are not followed.

Corrective actions- when mistakes are made in the company, there should be corrective actions to ensure that the errors are not repeated. You should note that the lack of compliance in the organization can affect the organization’s reputation and cost a lot of money.

 2. Commitment from the Management

The Management commitment is paramount to achieve this objective. The management should be committed to integrity and that the organization will abide by the laws. Being at the top, they should lead by example for other junior employees to learn from them.

The Management should come up with a code of conduct, communicate the expectations, adopt policies and explain to the staff regarding the proper compliance function. They should use proper enforcement programs to ensure that everyone in the company observes the compliance guidelines. The Management may or may not be involved in the day to day operational aspects of the compliance control process. The Management should allocate resources, financial budgets to meet the compliance objectives. The management oversight should provide the necessary teams and functions guidance, that will allow laws and regulations to be applied in their organization.

3. Systems and Process Monitoring Program

For a compliance management framework to be successful, it is essential to know that the systems and organizational processes are not only implemented by all monitored on an ongoing basis. Internal processes records and logs have to be captured and stored, but also verified as per standards, regulations and many times from customer on contractual obligations.

This will help the organization to know the services and products which offer satisfaction and those that don’t, which comply and which don't, helping to take decisions of mitigating the risk, complying with requirements, and providing satisfactory service the customers. Helps the organization to alter workflows, policies and procedures ensuring adherence to established guidelines, which will help the company increase its credibility to its customers and regulatory agencies. 

4. An Audit from an Independent Body

An Internal and External compliance audit is a review of an organization’s compliance with the standards and regulations. It also reviews whether there is adherence to the internal policies and implementations. The compliance review should be carried out by internal teams first and then by a 3rd party independent body of auditors to avoid biased reviews. The 3rd party external auditors will review and based on compliance will issue the certificate or confirm adherence to the regulation.

Internal and External compliance audits should be conducted regularly, and the management should determine how often the audit should be done. The management should come up with the scope of the audit and provide the auditors with all the materials and resources required for the audit. Auditing is essential in every organization as it will help the management to identify compliance risks and ensure that the employees are adhering to the ongoing compliance. In the audit team, it is crucial to have some members of the organization’s monitoring system to ensure that the audit is done correctly.

Once the audit is completed, the reports are documented; gaps are identified, improvements suggested and come up with corrective actions. The audit report should be handed over to the top management for further action.

Do note that MetaSCROLL helps you implement and maintain compliance, but does NOT certify for a particular standard. Certification has and should be done only by an independent 3rd party agency or partner.

Conclusion

Though it may seem like a lot of work, implementing an integrated compliance management framework comes with a lot of benefits for your business. You will not have to worry about being on the wrong side of the law, have stable operations, gain customer confidence, build a good reputation and ensure suppliers too meet their contractual obligations. Therefore, as an organization believing in  compliance, its the right time to implement MetaSCROLL , our application for an integrated compliance management framework and start enjoying the results. Contact Metatron for implementing MetaSCROLL across your organization.

MetaSCROLL helps to capture, update information related to various tasks and activities that need to be completed for a specific standard. It helps simplify and strengthen the organization wide compliance programs that govern your business, helping you adhere to regulations and standards requirements. The application asks questions related to implementation, tracking, mile stone based activities that need to be completed for maintenance and audit purposes. Improves your visibility into control effectiveness and ensures timely issue remediation. Helps to align policies, standards, regulations, and controls to eliminate inefficiencies and redundancies.

MetaSCROLL is based on following principle to effectively track and manage the compliance across all groups / functions and teams in the organization.