When managing compliance the preferred approach is always being proactive rather than reactive. Proactive organisations grow more advanced and adapt to new technology and take greater advantage of the value of managing compliance. Data can now be used to create informative compliance reports and audits to gain a competitive advantage, utilizing compliance management data as a great insightful source of information.
Collecting compliance data for management purposes is not always easy especially when following a paper-based route. There are various benefits of cloud-based compliance management, but the ease of collecting data is one of the biggest benefits. Having the correct data allows companies to better predict and manage compliance management, prevent failures and quickly escalate in case of a non-compliance event. In this article we focus on four key steps to consider when moving to cloud-based compliance management:
1. Discuss current compliance management
2. Assess available technology and software
3. Implement and adopt applications or software
4. Training
1. Discuss current compliance management
Internal discussions between organisational departments are highly encouraged. Each department should be able to voice struggles and obstacles with the paper- based process in detail. This will help assess any concerns that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. Next evaluate the manual documentation and data capturing processes and see how this could be improved with digital data capturing and documentation methods. A very common example is workers entering data or scanning various documents and having to manually rework the data that could easily have been entered (only once) into a digital platform.
2. Assess available technology and software
Every organisation is unique, each with its own requirements. After your discussions in the previous step, you should be able to identify your company's needs and can start the process of finding available solutions that would be the correct fit..
Next identify old and inefficient processes and consider possible technology or software that could simplify any processes. An example of this could be paper-based maintenance where there is no proof or confirmation process in place. A worker can complete forms without actually checking the condition of a machine just to mark the task as being completed.. An online checklist could be considered where picture proof is required. Understanding possible solutions, technologies and software will enable you to budget and plan to digitize this part of your workflow.
3. Implement and adopt applications or software
After consideration, it is time to purchase and adopt the new technology or software suited to your company’s requirements. Try to utilize your new software or technology to its full extent. Service providers are generally very supportive and can help you optimize. With new cloud-based documentation methods, each employee might understand and use it differently. Training,, is therefore essential as well as effective communication and when choosing the correct compliance management apps this can even help with streamlining the on-boarding process. For example, digital checklists can be used to communicate with the worker while ensuring all the tasks are getting completed timeously
4. Training
A solution won’t be beneficial if your employees don't know how to use it. After implementing a cloud-based compliance management software solution, make sure your investment is being maximized by concise, clear and accessible training of all staff. If employees are not correctly trained, they will not use the software correctly or just revert back to old paper-based methods as it is something they understand. To maximize your investments in digital transformation good training is therefore essential.
There are various aspects to take into consideration when moving to cloud-based compliance management and when implemented correctly, it will result in optimized processes and improved overall operations performance. For more related content, please subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.