Automating Compliance Evidence Collection: A New Approach for Complex Environments

GRC, Audit, and cybersecurity professionals in large enterprises face an ever-increasing array of compliance regulations.

Since 2000, the number of major federal regulations has surged from under 50 to more than 200 in 2024, covering diverse domains like cybersecurity, data protection, financial reporting, and environmental standards. The complexity and volume of these regulations pose significant challenges for organizations striving to maintain compliance.

Many medium sized enterprises have adopted compliance software tools to assist with the attestation process. These tools automate much of the artifact and data collection needed to prove compliance with mandated controls.

However, tooling that works for smaller and medium sized businesses often falls short in larger enterprises with heterogeneous environments comprised of proprietary technology, on-premises and multi-cloud systems, and complex data workflows. These unique and intricate scenarios require a different approach to evidence collection.

Traditionally, organizations have had two main options in such situations:

  1. Manual Collection: While flexible and adaptable, this method is labor-intensive, error-prone, and time-consuming.
  2. Custom-Built Scripts and Programs: These can automate repetitive tasks and ensure consistency, but they come with high initial development costs, ongoing maintenance requirements, and process and system integration challenges.

There’s a prevailing misconception that unique enterprise-scale evidence collection needs are too complicated to automate. This belief is rooted in seeing the limitations of proprietary technology designed for medium-sized enterprises with less complex data workflows. However, new enterprise-grade configurable compliance solutions are proving this belief to be outdated.

The Emergence of Configurable Compliance Solutions

Today, there’s a third option available: purchasing a solution specifically designed to be configurable and customizable to address the unique challenges of complex enterprise compliance to multiple frameworks and controls:

  • Automating attestation
  • Compliance gap analysis, and
  • Remediation for any security controls from any system, whether third-party or proprietary

Such an advanced solutions can significantly reduce the reliance on manual processes, unify scattered data, and end slow reporting.

At ComplianceCow, we’ve codified decades of experience building custom automation scripts and programs for complex enterprise situations. The result is a solution dedicated to helping GRC, audit, and cybersecurity professionals get compliance automations that other tools can’t handle.

Key Benefits of Configurable Compliance Solutions

Users get a wide range of advantages that address the unique challenges faced by large enterprises

  • Customization and Flexibility: Tailored to fit the unique needs of complex environments, these solutions can handle specific compliance requirements and integrate seamlessly with existing systems.
  • Efficiency and Accuracy: By automating evidence collection, organizations can reduce human error and ensure more consistent and reliable compliance reporting.
  • Scalability: These solutions can scale with the organization’s growth, accommodating increasing volumes of data and expanding regulatory requirements.
  • Cost-Effectiveness: While the initial investment may be higher, the long-term savings from no longer chasing highly skilled employees for screenshots, dramatic error reduction, faster remediation, and improved compliance audit efficiency are substantial.

Additional Benefits

  • Regulatory Agility: The solution is designed to handle the ever-evolving nature of compliance rules with updates.
  • Integration: Compatibility with legacy systems, heterogeneous infrastructure platforms, and disparate data sources.
  • Resource Support: Helps teams eliminate most of the tedious and time-consuming work of digging through various systems, tracking down documentation, and ensuring all required evidence is provided, up-to-date and accurate.

A New Game

In the face of growing regulatory demands, large enterprises need advanced solutions that go beyond the capabilities of popular compliance tools designed for smaller and medium-sized businesses.

Configurable and customizable compliance automations from ComplianceCow offer a third option that’s based on decades of, automating complex evidence collection processes and addressing the unique challenges of unique, proprietary, and intricate environments. GRC, audit, and cybersecurity professionals get a solution that’s more efficient, accurate, and scalable, ultimately reducing the burden of manual tasks and enhancing the organization’s overall cybersecurity and compliance posture.