As mountaineering tourism becomes more popular, novice climbers are setting out to conquer the world’s highest summits. Unfortunately, they are often ill-prepared and ill-equipped for the challenge, and the results can be tragic.
The compliance realm may not be as physically risky as climbing Mount Everest is, but there are real risks to your assessment firm and your client’s business every time you begin an engagement. You need to be well prepared and well equipped to guide your clients through the journey.
In our last article, we talked about the importance of preparing your clients for what lies ahead when you begin an assessment. In this article, we’ll look at the “gear” you need to pack for the journey.
Experienced climbers know the importance of selecting the right gear. It needs to be reliable, in excellent condition, and built to handle the job. You can’t use any old rope for climbing, and a dead branch won’t suffice as a hiking staff. Likewise, the success of your compliance engagement depends on using systems that were specifically designed to handle the challenges you’ll face throughout the project.
Up a Trail Without a Backpack
Most assessment firms are using the wrong system. Every day they rely on that system, it costs them time, effort and money. When I talk with assessors about their work, they frequently express frustration that they are constantly laboring to keep their engagements profitable and on schedule. They exert a tremendous amount of human effort to maintain order and keep moving forward, but the nature of the compliance journey is just too demanding and invariably the engagement falls behind.
The chaos swirling around them doesn’t make things any easier, as they try to juggle client management, status checks, team collaboration and their own duties.
The problem isn’t necessarily a people issue or a broken process. It’s the gear you’ve packed for the trek. It isn’t designed to take you on a compliance assessment, and it’s failing you.
Pack the Right Compliance Tools
Using the right compliance management tools will greatly reduce your inefficiencies and streamline your engagement. Choosing a tool simply because it’s already on your computer is like outfitting your mountaineering trek with the family camping gear in your basement. But that’s exactly what most assessment firms do when they select their compliance management tools.
Applications like Excel, Word and Dropbox are intended for low-impact office work. They aren’t designed to meet the rugged challenges of a complex compliance engagement. As a result, you end up pouring hundreds of man-hours into every project, simply trying to keep it all together while failing to stay within budget.
You need a compliance software solution that’s built specifically for automating compliance management. TCT Portal lets you ditch all of your clunky spreadsheets, documents and storage locations that you’re currently using to manage and track your compliance efforts.
TCT Portal is a web-based software, built specifically for compliance by folks that live and breathe in the compliance space, just like you do. There are no wonky workarounds, no square pegs to cram into round holes. It’s an elegant solution that seamlessly works with all of your compliance management activities.
Imagine that the storm clouds of compliance are parting, revealing a gleaming software solution in the distance. That’s how some of our assessors have said they felt once they began using TCT Portal on their engagements.
Built for the Compliance Trek
No matter what technologies and software you’re using, if your compliance management is primarily manual, you’re going to have a tougher time leading your client through the assessment. TCT’s automated compliance management system takes a lot of the heavy lifting off your shoulders.
Here’s what TCT Portal software lets you do:
- See an ROI of 25% or better in time savings and thousands of dollars in recovered costs per engagement.
- Know the entire engagement status at a glance, in real time.
- Send automated prompts to your client and stop herding cats.
- Streamline document submission and know immediately what each file represents.
- Map requirements across certifications.
- Allow multiple users to enter data simultaneously.
- Eliminate bottlenecks: assign a set of requirements to QA while working on other sets.
- Update your templates at a moment’s notice, and automatically cascade changes to all of your clients.
Handpicked related content: End Inefficient Compliance Assessment Engagements
TCT Portal makes your compliance management more efficient, more effective and less costly. The net result is that you’re saving time, feeling less frustrated and leading your client through the journey more successfully.
Tools like Excel, Word or project management apps can get you part of the way there, but they’ll never deliver the full functionality you need to effectively manage an assessment.
TCT Portal is the no-brainer solution your assessment firm has been looking for. Start leading your clients through streamlined, profitable engagements.
