Business Process Compliance

Process compliance is the regulation and maintenance of industry standards and guidelines.

Most industries have standards and guidelines relating to the execution of their business processes. Some of these are actual laws and non-compliance can result in stiff penalties or even jail time for company officers. Several examples are listed below:

• ANSI – American National Standards Institute
• ISO – International Standards Organisation
• HIPAA – Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
• SOX – Sarbanes–Oxley Act

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As the required regulations, standards and legislation is ever-increasing maintaining or becoming compliant is a critical business concern. In fact, as organisations expand compliance becomes very complicated this is due to international guidelines. For example, SOX a US legislation covering IT compliance guidelines is not the same as Germany’s Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex. As a result, international organisations must be aware and prepare for compliance requirements for each country in which they operate. Not to mention, in some countries different provinces also have their own standards which you must meet.

To address these issues organisations are increasingly turning to specialised software or consultancies. In addition, to hiring a significant compliance department along with a chief compliance officer (CCO). The main responsibilities of this department and/or CCO is to both maintain compliance and pass compliance audits. These compliance audits are not static, they vary on a variety of factors including industry, size, data and a myriad of other circumstances.

However, once these things are in place they can provide training for the rest of the organisation leading to an effective compliance process. Therefore, it’s a good investment to get these things in place so that as new compliance audits come in, you’re ready to make the necessary adjustments in a quick cost-effective manner.

Further resources on Process Compliance:

• Read our process improvement plan
• Business Process Management Common Body of Knowledge (BPM CBOK, 2009), The Association of Business Process Management Professionals

Related Links:

• Compliance
• Why audits are not enough for social responsibility
• Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC)

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Explore more about different process improvement terms in our BPM Glossary.