“I need to show auditors that all published content on our websites has been vetted and approved.”

IDC predicts that financial services IT spending pertaining to risk functions will reach more than $80 billion by 2017. In the world of a regulated industry, this should not come as a big surprise. This effectively indicates that due to significant investments in business processes and tools, that compliance departments will need to be very diligent of tracking and storing all data and information pertaining to everything from trades, to email communication to web and social media content. It also indicates an increase in the complexity of these organizations derived from more people, more processes and more complex workflows and access rules.

With every compliance group or individual we speak to, it’s clear that audits are a very time consuming aspect of their work. Making it easy for auditors to find information and effectively do their job, in turn makes it easier for compliance to focus on the more important day to day tasks. When it comes to website content, the reality is that it should not be hard to work with the auditors on this aspect of their review. If you’re having challenges in this space, here are a few key elements to consider especially if you’re looking for a way to reduce the amount of time your compliance departments spend with auditors:

• Does your current platform automate and monitor the auditing and archiving of all web content being submitted by advisors and subsequently reviewed, approved or rejected by compliance?
• Can you assign granular workflow permissions to specific individuals or groups of advisors?
• Can you comment on specific workflows and content versions?
• How do your marketing and compliance teams communicate with your advisors during the review process? Is that communication logged and tracked?
• Are your pre-approved content libraries access controlled? Can you set permissions on specific pages or digital assets like documents, images and video?

In the world of compliance, you can never have enough governance around your content and the questions above are just a snapshot of what you need to consider if you’re looking to improve your audit times. If you’ve answered no to any of the above questions, we can help steer you in a direction that makes sense for your organization. Start a conversation with us and we can help you some of the initial thinking around your current processes by filling out the form below.