More and more assessment firms are realizing that the old way of managing and tracking compliance engagements just doesn’t cut it. Running off of spreadsheets and word processing programs can only get your company so far. Meanwhile, other firms are turning to compliance automation software. As a result, they’re gaining more clients and turning larger […]
I lived in the IT world for 15 years before my first compliance and security extravaganza. It was an eye-opening experience, discovering how much I didn’t know. People think that if you’re in IT, you know everything there is to know about it — including security and compliance. Even your boss might assume you’re an […]
If you’re like most assessment firms, you’re tracking your activities, submissions, and status updates in a massive, complex spreadsheet. And if you’re like most firms, your tracking sheets are creating problems that make your engagements more chaotic — not less. Your tracking sheets are supposed to make life easier for you, but they’re actually introducing […]
Your first year as a compliance assessor is going to be a crazy one. You’ve got industry knowledge you need to gain and retain, internal processes to follow, a suite of proprietary tools and processes to figure out, client relationships to maintain, trends to follow, rules to master, and a ton of paperwork to keep […]
PCI 4.0 is slated to be released in 2020, and we’re starting to get some sneak peeks at what to expect. Among the changes, it looks like the upgrade will allow companies to take a risk-based approach to the standard. For many organizations with a mature security and compliance program, the change will be a […]
I was consulting on an engagement. The assessor on the project was mentoring a new assessor, but the new assessor hadn’t arrived, yet. He was having travel issues and ended up arriving on-site halfway through the engagement. Once he arrived, the junior assessor was quick to make comments and ask questions without first considering the […]
Your role as compliance assessor is to guide your clients through the journey of a compliance assessment. Every engagement takes your clients along a path that’s littered with stumbling stones, rabbit trails and uncharted territory. A maelstrom of chaos awaits, and your clients need a trail guide who can confidently and expertly lead them to […]
Software tools like spreadsheets, Word documents and project management programs inherently make compliance engagements more difficult, not easier. They aren’t designed to track compliance, they take more effort, and they cut into your profits. Assessment firms that use automated compliance management systems save time, increase profits and minimize frustrations.
As you walk into a compliance engagement with a new client, you’ve got everything orderly and planned out. Your deck of templates is ready to go and you’ve set up your drop zone for files. A beautiful Gantt chart maps out the entire compliance assessment, with milestones. The first day, you lay out the plan […]