Corporate compliance is an integral part of company operations. Compliance ascertains that the company in question abides by the rules and regulations that apply to their business type. It is imperative for any company to eliminate the risk of legal liability and risks.
With the new era of remote work ushering in, most of the work happens outside the corporate network and periphery, maintaining compliance can be a real challenge. As the discussion spikes, the question arises – when remote working is the new normal, why should compliance not be virtual.
Let’s discuss…
Compliance: The Traditional Route
Typically, in most organisations, an internal team is responsible for the entire compliance management. Some companies choose the consultant route and bring in a third-party individual(s) to handle the compliance.
To ensure smooth compliance, collaboration, and exchange of information between various stakeholders is very critical. Traditionally, it is done through physical data handover. In conventionally operated enterprises, the data is stored more or less in physical records. The compliance teams are expected to dig through piles of paperwork or data stored in a hotchpotch of excel sheets, desktops, pen drives, and even CD drives. The compliance teams prepare periodic reports gathering the necessary information from the plethora of data. Everything is done, believe it or not, manually!
It works until it doesn’t!
The unorganised data often leads to a lack of visibility, leaving the business owners unaware of the potential threats until they happen, and this comes at a price. What follows is dispute management with government agencies and delays in submission.
When it comes to labour laws, the Indian labour law landscape extremely complex. Companies need to adhere to state laws and federal laws that are continuously updated. The distinct compliance rules for payroll, shops, and establishments, factories, contractors, and contractor audits add to the complexity as well as costs. These reasons, along with the lack of awareness, contribute to India being poor in compliance with only 65% of the companies being fully compliant.
This clearly isn’t the ideal way for compliance management
The more businesses rely on manual processes and doing it all just the way it has been done for years, the more they realise the importance of real-time visibility.
Having an insight into compliance status at every stage and maintaining data security in the era of data privacy and protection becomes significant. Hand holding from a compliance expert to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of compliance is more than appreciated.
Compliance experts or specialists look over the entire process of development, implementation, and policy enforcement to ensure that the company complies with all the regulations. The compliance experts also liaison between the company and the government authorities and keep the business owners in the loop with real-time notifications and updates with the help of automation and tech-driven processes.
The shift in the work environment with COVID-19
COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the working environment across the globe. While few companies in India were well-prepared to support remote working and had policies for the same in place, a few were extremely averse to the idea and didn’t have the necessary infrastructure whatsoever.
Naturally, to ensure business continuity, companies had to allow employees to work from their personal devices, connecting to unknown networks and accessing sensitive corporate data (including the customer data).
When the entire work, communication, and collaboration is happening online, maintaining compliance is tough. Especially for the companies that do not make use of technology, it is difficult to manually carry out compliance monitoring and collate data from various fragmented sources (especially the data that rests on employees’ desktops).
Information protection, while remote working, is crucial, and maintaining the culture of security and communicating updates related to compliance has become challenging. Finding gaps and vulnerabilities in compliance is difficult with a remote working force.
According to a study, even after the businesses open up in India, only 50% of the staff will return to the office, which means remote working will continue to prevail. Virtual collaboration, virtual meetings, and virtual work, along with data security concerns, open up the need for virtual compliance.
Introducing Virtual Compliance
Going virtual seems like the right way forward – even when it comes to compliance management.
Introducing Virtual Compliance Manager, India’s first solution combining a powerful cloud-based Compliance Platform and Core Integra’s compliance expertise.
With Virtual Compliance Manager, companies get access to a technology solution and a dedicated virtual compliance officer to handle the compliance.
The platform provides
The virtual compliance officer –
With Virtual Compliance Manager, companies don’t need to worry about compliance management of statutory compliance requirements. They get guaranteed compliance management at a fraction of the cost. The stakeholders get real-time visibility regarding compliance. All the compliance-related documents and information is securely stored and managed. The Virtual Compliance Manager also ensures painless government interfaces.
Time to go virtual with compliance
The Indian compliance programs are constantly evolving, and so are the companies that are enabling remote working. In the wake of change, there couldn’t be a better time to opt for virtual compliance. MNCs are catching up with the trend, and it is the small businesses that need most of the help in their compliance management.
When looking for one, Core Integra’s Virtual Compliance Manager stands out as the most cost-effective and comprehensive solution that can make the entire process a breeze. Let’s connect to discuss more.
