What Does It Mean to Be Compliant?
As you might already know, finding useful compliance information online isn’t as straightforward as it seems. We wrote this article to help you discover what compliance is and why it’s a key concern for your business.
Over the past couple of years, businesses have witnessed an alarming trend. The number of federally-filed ADA website and application accessibility-related lawsuits have reached one case per working hour! If you’re wondering, that adds up to 8 a day, 40 a week, and over 2000 lawsuits a year. And that’s just one of several regulatory standards that most businesses have to comply with!
But don’t panic just yet. There are steps you can take if your business isn’t quite up to scratch with compliance regulations. Are you interested in learning more? Let’s get started.
Please watch our latest video on Compliance:
What Is Compliance?
In business tech speak, compliance refers to the act of adhering to the guidelines of a specific government or industry-mandated standard.
What Are the Most Common IT Compliance Standards? As the years have gone by, the business world has become more and more regulated. Almost every industry now has its own standards, and keeping track of all of them by yourself can be a tough ask. That’s why we came up with the following list of the most common standards:
- HIPAA: The Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires healthcare organizations to standardize electronic health records systems. There are also several security measures designed to safeguard patient data and confidentiality.
- SOX: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act aims at protecting shareholders and the general public from fraudulent practices and accounting errors in the enterprise. It outlines several rules, including guidelines on storing and retaining digital business records.
- PCI DSS: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a set of policies meant to secure credit, debit, and cash card transactions. They were developed by MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Depending on the country, state, and industry, a business may need to conform to a completely different set of standards. So, how do you achieve compliance with the relevant standards?
How Can You Stay Compliant With All the Relevant Standards?
- Identify the Standards that Apply to Your Organization: You first need to find out which standards you should be on the lookout for and research all the information you can find on them. An effective strategy is looking up implementation specifications, where they are offered. Implementation specifications are detailed descriptions of the steps businesses need to take to meet all the standard requirements. To do this, simply head to the standard’s governing website.
- Get in Touch With a Reputable IT Services Provider: So you can be absolutely sure nothing is left to chance, you need to partner up with a trusted IT services company. Regardless of your experience level with compliance, the technical expertise and experience an IT company brings would be valuable. For example, a reliable IT partner would help you identify possible gaps in controls with the potential to result in unsuccessful conclusions.
- Assign a Team to Monitor Compliance: However, if your business is growing, hiring a team of full-time employees dedicated to compliance may be far too expensive. In that case, we recommend appointing an existing employee to oversee compliance over the review period.
- Start Preparations Early Enough: Nobody likes scrambling at the last minute to put everything in order, especially when the stakes are this high. You need to start preparing for compliance as early as possible to avoid unnecessary expenses, errors, and the emotional strain of the last-minute rush.
Looking to Find Out Whether Your Cincinnati Business is Compliant?
Our experienced IT professionals at 4BIS.COM would love to help your business achieve compliance with all the relevant standards.
Contact us now at (513) 469-7887 to schedule your first compliance consultation!
