A year ago, your company became compliant for the first time. It was cause for celebration, slaps on the back, and a free lunch for your internal compliance team. You worked hard and nearly killed yourselves to get there, but you did it.
Now it’s a year later, and you’re sitting across from your assessor. You don’t expect to take anyone out to lunch today. You don’t expect to slap anyone on the back. In fact, you don’t know what to expect, other than an uncomfortable conversation.
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There was the semi-annual firewall review that didn’t get completed by the end of Q2 and quarterly user account reviews that weren’t performed in Q3. You’re really not sure which balls were dropped and what slipped through the cracks. People forgot their responsibilities, they got too busy to keep track of things, a turnover created a gap, or a crisis came up. Whatever the case, now you’re sitting in front of the compliance assessor and you’re hoping those black marks won’t be enough to fail your compliance report.
This is a common scenario, and it’s incredibly difficult to avoid—especially if you have multiple compliance standards to meet each year. For most companies, the annual push to maintain compliance is nearly as difficult as the struggle to achieve it in the first place.
Your Software Is Putting You at Risk
The problem for these companies is a reliance on outdated software that was never intended to manage all of the complexities of a compliance engagement. It’s like trying to go into outer space using tools from the Stone Age. Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and file shares can’t provide the functionality your team needs to stay on top of your periodic tasks throughout the annual compliance cycle.
What is needed isn’t another Stone Age solution, but an automation software designed specifically for security and compliance. Automation can take you into the digital age and help ensure that you stay on top of those compliance requirements all year long
TCT Portal is your end-to-end compliance management software, built by people who have lived and breathed compliance for decades. The automation platform gets your compliance engagement running like clockwork, and after a few cycles, you’ll notice a flywheel effect that you’ve never achieved before.
The Flywheel of Compliance Automation
This flywheel effect happens when you start working in Operational Mode in TCT Portal. Operational Mode is the maintenance phase that you enter after achieving compliance. This is when the automation kicks in and it’s where TCT Portal really shines.
With TCT Portal, the day-in, day-out of security and compliance management is simple and easy to handle, because the software helps to facilitate what you need to be doing, and when. Over time, the annual compliance cycle becomes easier and easier. Year two is easier than year one. Year three is easier than year two.
The Portal allows you to gain efficiencies every year, so that by year three, your security and compliance program is humming along with very little friction. Everyone knows what they need to do and they’re operating in a familiar cadence. They understand the process, and they know what’s going on.
There’s a flywheel effect, as your compliance process gets more and more efficient every year.
Benefits of Operational Mode
With TCT Portal’s Operational Mode, you can walk into every audit knowing that everything you needed to do is done. You don’t need to worry about what things you forgot to do this year. Instead, you’ll enter the audit calm and confident.
Operational Mode lets you see in a moment everything that needs to be done, when it needs to be done and who needs to do it. The automation functions ensure that your team gets reminded of every responsibility in a timely manner, so that nothing gets dropped. You have clear, common knowledge across your entire team of what needs to be done, and who needs to do it.
When turnover occurs, the disruption is minimal. All you need to do is reassign the outgoing person’s tasks to others on your team. It just takes a minute, and you get peace of mind that no tasks will slip through the cracks.
How It Works
After you achieve compliance, you’ll flip the switch and enter Operational Mode. Now the automation kicks in and compliance starts getting easier. People on your team receive reminders a couple weeks before the end of each quarter to do the tasks they’re assigned to. This creates a nice cadence for the security and compliance engagement, and it ensures they complete everything in a timely manner.
TCT Portal also shows the real-time status of your compliance management, so you can go in anytime and check the current state of your compliance. Get confirmation throughout the year that you’re staying on track and doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
As a result, TCT Portal helps you to proactively confirm that the periodic tasks of your organization are being done throughout the annual cycle—not during a scramble to prepare for the auditor’s visit.
There’s also the historical knowledge that Operational Mode captures. Within a year’s time, it’s easy to forget what you did last time, and turnover means lost knowledge. With Operational Mode, none of that is a problem.
TCT Portal provides a repository of evidence from the previous cycle that’s well organized. That means all of your evidence in the coming audit cycle is easily referenceable from the prior year—so you know exactly what was provided before that passed muster for your auditor.
Enjoy Easier Compliance
Your job is to use technology to protect and strengthen your organization. Why should that be any different when it comes to compliance? Outdated software is keeping you in the Stone Age, but TCT Portal’s Operational Mode puts you into the Digital Age.
It’s time to enjoy the flywheel effect that TCT’s compliance automation software can provide. Get your personalized demo today.
