3 Questions You Need To Ask When Shopping For Compliance Data Analytics Tools

Big data is here, and it’s only getting bigger. Implementing data analytics tools in your business today will future-proof it against a constantly changing regulatory and market landscape. As you start the search for such critical software, here’s what you need to keep top of mind

We’re living in a world where big data is only getting bigger. By 2025, our society will generate more than 175 billion terabytes of data each year—triple the amount generated in 2021 As such, companies need to emphasize data analytics tools in their compliance and risk management plans, because whether it’s data created by clients or employees the automation they offer is the key to successfully managing it all. This is a reality not lost on IT decision makers. Almost 90% of them believe that data collection and analysis can fundamentally change how their companies do business. And the most efficient and effective types of data analytics tools they can employ in this data-management challenge are insight-driven dashboards.

THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF INSIGHT-DRIVEN DASHBOARDS
As employee data of all kinds continues to pile up, compliance officers must avoid traditional compartmentalized perspectives, and instead effectively combine data analytics and compliance monitoring in order to keep up. Risk and compliance software thus needs to have insight-driven dashboards that aggregate data to create a holistic view of employee activity. This streamlines compliance risk management into a predictive and proactive process that can detect problems before they occur. It also frees up your compliance officers’ precious time, pulling them away from manually searching concerning activity and allowing them to focus on deeper analysis, like understanding how and why employees make unethical decisions in the first place. When shopping for your own analytics tools, then, always ask these three fundamental questions to make sure they offer optimum capability.

1. DO THEY PROVIDE A QUICKLY DIGESTIBLE OVERVIEW?
Visualization is an important part of modern data analytics. Businesses tend to store a lot of information in massive spreadsheets and databases, often across various servers and networks. The process of simply finding and referencing the right data source is as resource intensive as the process of keeping them all updated. Many corporations have cobbled together solutions that can automate some actions, but it’s still a time-consuming process to update and generate the proper reports. Insight-driven dashboards enable quicker access to actionable insights. This will allow not just compliance officers but also frontline managers the ability to make critical decisions as fast and as accurately as possible.

2. HOW TIMELY IS THE DATA THEY SHOW?
The traditional approach for compliance and risk management reporting is highly manual and is therefore only performed at certain intervals. Compliance officers may get some reports daily, weekly, or monthly, but none are showing actionable insights with near real-time data. Your data analytics tools, then, must automatically collect critical data and display it visibly in an intuitive interface. StarCompliance’s Insight Driven Dashboards do just this—presenting insights front-and-center for compliance officers and frontline personnel alike, for easy consumption and quick analysis. Everything from the macro to the micro should be clearly visible and accessible, to make the best predictive and proactive decisions. When properly leveraged, the insights gleaned can keep your firm well ahead of the many kinds of compliance and risk management issues that can arise.

3. ARE THE WORKFLOWS AUTOMATED?
Compliance is getting increasingly difficult, as data piles up and regulations get more stringent. Regulators like the SEC have signaled a strong tech-centric approach of late, as Chair Gary Gensler seeks to expand the agency’s reach. Data analytics tools should automate any manual work involved in compliance and risk management, then. With manual processes—typically a combination of email chains and spreadsheets—there are bound to be mistakes when compliance officers are sprinting just to keep up. Compliance officers using a data-driven approach, with an intuitive dashboard system delivering the critical data they need, can more easily and more effectively do their jobs, as predictive decisions based on available data enables more work in less time. And properly implementing data analytics tools in your business today will future-proof it through a constantly changing regulatory landscape. Compliance and risk management are crucial for a business of any size, and automated systems like Star’s Insight-Driven Dashboards are the key to making it happen.