SAI Global Compliance Honors Exceptional Achievements and Examines Industry Trends at Compliance 360 Customer Conference

Demonstrating Effective Compliance and Third-Party Risk Among Top Challenges Faced by GRC Professionals

ALPHARETTA, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Compliance professionals from financial services, healthcare, insurance and other regulated industries shared their best practices, new ideas and concerns regarding increasing demands for compliance effectiveness and protecting against risks associated with outside vendors at the recent Compliance 360 2012 Customer Conference. The event was hosted by SAI Global Compliance, the world’s leading provider of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) products, services and technology including the Compliance 360® GRC Software Suite.

Topics top of mind for the attendees included:

• Getting the Board’s Attention: Due to increasingly strict fiduciary and reporting obligations, board directors must be fully informed of compliance and risk factors within an organization. Compliance officers need to be able to present to the board in a concise, educational manner that will help directors make informed decisions. Tactics discussed for achieving this included creating summary reports for emerging risks, monitoring and outlining up-and-coming legislation and using examples to highlight the implications of compliance breaches.
• Third-Party Risk: As organizations increasingly turn to outsourced providers to reduce operating costs and increase their focus on core competencies, the need for third-party risk management continues to grow in importance. With the nature of business relationships in a constant state of change, the need for continuous assessments and early warning indicators of changes to risk profiles is becoming a must for many organizations in regulated industries. As risk profiles change over time, compliance and risk professionals need to constantly adjust their focus and corrective action plans for vendors, especially those in the high-risk and high-impact categories.
• HIPAA/Privacy Enforcement: With the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) now piloting a program to perform audits of covered entities to assess privacy and security compliance as mandated by the HITECH Act, the risk of fines and negative publicity is growing. These organizations are turning to their internal programs and processes to protect themselves from sanctions and compliance professionals are taking the initiative in planning and preparation. Examples of planning include mapping out everything down to what type of boxes will be utilized during office relocation and staging “mock audits” to ensure that all privacy requirements are met and can withstand the scrutiny of an external review.
• Staying off the Regulator’s Radar: Beyond improving the effectiveness of compliance programs, the ability to quantitatively demonstrate compliance capabilities to regulators is key to staying off the short list for review. This is being achieved by monitoring the focus of the regulators and proactively making the supporting evidence of compliance available to them using an “on demand” model.

Organizations with exemplary compliance programs, including notable return on investment (ROI), effective reduction in fraud, waste and abuse, and improvements in both the efficiency and effectiveness of incident supervision were recognized during the Compliance 360 Customer Conference Award ceremony. The winning businesses that showed outstanding achievements in their GRC efforts included:

• Vail Resorts: Excellence in Compliance Management
• WellCare: Excellence in Compliance Risk Management
• HealthPlan of San Mateo: Excellence in Demonstrating Compliance Effectiveness
• BankUnited: Excellence in Third-Party Risk Management
• HealthPlus of Michigan: Excellence in Incident Management
• BJC HealthCare: Excellence in a Broad Scale Deployment

“In an environment where compliance and risk management programs are increasingly the target of scrutiny, highlighting organizations that have experienced the benefits of successful deployments provides peers with models for creating their own first-rate GRC programs,” said Steve McGraw, GRC President, SAI Global Compliance. “By bringing together customers from regulated industries to foster dialogue about current trends and share best practices, we’re helping compliance professionals utilize the collective experience of the Compliance 360 community to more effectively address their most demanding challenges.”

About Compliance 360® GRC Software Suite

The original Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) software solutions born in the cloud, Compliance 360 brings order and efficiency to the complexity of enterprise governance, risk management, compliance and audit management. The Compliance 360 GRC Software Suite includes regulatory compliance software, policy management software, internal audit software, incident management software, ERM software and a wide variety of specialty applications. More than 250,000 professionals every day in healthcare, insurance, financial services, distribution and other regulated industries rely on Compliance 360 applications to help protect their revenues, reputations and brands. www.compliance360.com

About SAI Global Compliance

SAI Global Compliance provides organizations with a wide range of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) products, solutions and services that help build organizational integrity and meet overall business objectives. With more than twenty-five years experience and offices in more than 25 countries, SAI Global’s solutions include a wide range of GRC products and services including the Compliance 360 GRC Software Suite, best practice Code of Conduct program services and training, compliance and ethics training and awareness, risk and culture assessments, a full range of advisory services, whistleblowing hotline services, regulatory knowledge, policy management, case management, and third party compliance management including automated due diligence workflow and management. www.saiglobal.com/compliance

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Source: SAI Global Compliance