Compliance: Resistance is Futile
Compliance: Resistance is Futile
August 20, 2007: Some organisations are still attempting to resist compliance. This resistance may turn out to be futile when the risks of discovery kick in.
Legal compliance refers to organisations ensuring they adhere to a set of standards and procedures laid out to prevent breaking the law. In the IT world this often refers to having email, instant messaging and phone logs stored and archived in such a way as to comply with the current standards. Failing to comply can result in devastating litigation where the legal process of discovery sheds light on all the darkened secrets a company has stored. “Compliance is inevitable” said Bill Lyons, AXS-One Chairman and CEO told IDM. The risks associated with legal discovery are on the rise, as is the widespread take up of compliance measures to prevent these costs.
Embracing compliance however means embracing change, and “Bureaucracies by definition are resistant to change” Lyons pointed out, “they may have too eventually but left to their own devices they won’t rush towards it”. Now consider the US government, who has been herding organisations towards a new plateau of change with regards to data discovery and compliance. Australia has been heading down the same path with due vigilance, with only some organisations recognising the dangers.
According to Lyons, it has become fashionable for litigators to push the need for legal discovery to force a quick settlement. This is due to organisations lacking records compliance systems, and the actual cost of sending research teams into archive vaults is much higher then a multi million dollar settlement.
Compliance is also an area which affects every industry and organisation Lyons said. No one market or industry is safe from the threat of legal discovery or compliance responsibility. Legally, the current situation is a quagmire of overlapping state and federal laws; however the US is combating this with attempts to unify the laws and standardise processes. If Australia is to follow the same path that we seem to be treading, then compliance will become even more widespread.
This isn’t to say compliance is a resultant which organisations are forced into, even though regulations and the threat of discovery may speed up the process, the world of compliance is a destination organisations would have ended up at anyway. With compliance comes increased transparency, reduced risk of litigation and an established best process if litigation should occur.
Compliance is also the realm of small-mid sized businesses as well as larger corporations. “Wether you have 6 inboxes or 6,000 you are still at risk of discovery and need to consider the risks of non-compliance” said David Thompson, AXS-One Australia’s Managing Director. What also needs to be considered is the increasing number of mediums that can be accounted for with discovery. Traditionally instant messaging, phone calls, emails and written correspondence have been associated with discovery. Now there is an increasing number of new mediums such as VOIP Telephony, SMS and social networking that has the potential to be brought in.
Coupled with this level of scalability comes increased awareness, the news reports of Australian Wheat Board emails, leaked political speeches as well as massive litigation tussles involving huge discovery costs are stacking up in favour of compliance.
“AXS-One will see growth where the customers have the most pain” Lyons told IDM. Considering that AXS-One has seen a major boom on its yearly results, spearheaded by its Records Compliance Management (RCM) solution their may be quite a lot of pain to be eased. The estimated growth for the RCM’s is quite high, particularly when you consider that “virtually every corporation in the world will need a compliance solution eventually”.