Death and Taxes
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

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It is said there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. Add, perhaps, a third:

Regulation.

Our businesses operate amidst a confusion of regulations -- local, national and multinational in scope. Businesses of almost any size have to contend with mandates to Know Their Customers, avoid money laundering, protect personal data, manage access to copyrighted information, report to financial bodies, guard against insider trading, disclose executive compensation, identify relationships of influence and maintain accurate, comprehensive records on all of the above. Taken together, regulations represent an enormous landscape of information opportunities and challenges.

In the past 10 years, regulations have changed significantly. At the same time, information product development has advanced far beyond what most of us once imagined possible. Today’s smart information systems connect incoming information about risks, transactions and accounts to controls enabling companies to manage within regulatory frameworks.

Still, none of this happens without a lot of investment, intelligent staff and creative combinations of content and technology. What’s more, it continues to evolve. Since September 2009 when we first began this FreePint Research: Regulatory Compliance Resources project, the Bribery Bill has become the Bribery Act of 2010, and goodness knows how many new product enhancements have been introduced. There’s no want for reasons to invest in regulatory compliance or ways to spend that investment.

That’s the interesting -- and compelling -- element of regulatory compliance as a category of information practice, content and staff: Despite the difficulties of 2008 and 2009, in which information centres reported to FreePint that their staffing was reduced by 20% or more (in some cases almost down to nothing) and their content budgets slashed in painful efforts to remain viable during the worst of the trough, respondents to the Regulatory Compliance survey tell as slightly different story. Budgets are depressed, but not nearly to the extent of the general information budget; staff are stable or even increasing, even when organisations are trying to reduce their head count.

Like death and taxes, regulation is not something that can be sidestepped. There are no shortcuts to regulatory compliance; there is no 'good enough.' Organisations must have access to the data they need to help them maintain compliance, and they must have them in a format that enable work to flow smoothly, to keep high-value employees moving quickly and effectively through reams of information.

Clearly there is opportunity in this sector of information work, and our respondents provide insight into what’s on their wish lists. Although the body of responses is by no means comprehensive, it does provide a view into the needs and priorities of information workers who handle compliance-related products and needs.

Request a free copy of the FreePint Report: Regulatory Compliance Resources

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