86% of companies have challenges integrating regulatory tracking into their workflows, according to our recent report, The Top Challenges of Monitoring Regulatory Risk in 2022. By speaking to 120 stakeholders working at companies developing software in GRC, RegTech, Regulatory Risk Management, and Regulatory Intelligence, we gained essential insight into what these challenges are, why they occur, and which industries they impact the most.
What are the top challenges in integrating regulatory tracking?
By far, the top challenge in integrating regulatory tracking is insufficient technical support. 53% of respondents called this out as the main issue – stating that they would like to introduce a new technology or service, and yet the skills and practical support aren’t there to make it happen. This is followed by the lack of knowledge about the services that they could use to integrate regulatory tracking into their workflows in the first place.
The biggest surprise here was to find that budgetary restrictions are not a concern to today’s organizations. When asked about their budget, 86% predict that their budget for regulatory tracking will increase this year, and a further 11% report that it will stay the same. This leaves just 3% predicting a reduction in budget, giving teams plenty of resources to utilize – if they can jump the hurdles of knowledge and skills.
With a budget in place, but a lack of technical support or information about the best solutions for their needs, 84% of companies are opting to track regulatory data manually. Just 38% would strongly agree that they have the resources and the skills in-house to integrate regulatory tracking into their workflows effectively.
Overwhelmingly, companies are leaning on manual work in order to track regulatory changes. This is a huge task, and the data shows it’s only getting bigger. 50% of companies expect to spend more time tracking regulatory data in 2022 than they did in 2021, and 63% expect the volume of regulatory data to stay the same or to increase during this period.
How do workflow integration challenges differ between industries?
Breaking down the data by industries, we uncovered significant differences between the challenges that stand in the way of regulatory tracking integration. For example, in GRC, budget is of more concern than in any other industry, while in Risk Management, just 8% use cost as a reason for their reliance on manual work.
In risk management, lack of knowledge was called out by 29% of companies, suggesting an important education gap that needs to be bridged.
64% of Regulatory Intelligence software companies say that they have insufficient technical support to introduce a new technology or service, which is considerably higher than the 52% average across all businesses. To accurately track, gather, monitor, and maintain an up-to-date database of relevant regulatory information is extremely difficult. It’s clear that managing this task in-house, including finding the right technical expertise is the main hurdle for today’s companies.
Time for a shift in strategy: By 2023, just 17% of regulatory compliance data will be tracked manually
Without the tech and support in place to accurately manage regulatory web data, we can see how respondents are moving to work in an increasingly manual way. In fact, 51% of respondents say that in Q4 2022 they will be working manually in-house to collect regulatory web data, up from 33% at the start of 2022. However, by 2023, this number is expected to drop sharply to just 17%.
This allows us to make data-driven predictions about the regulatory tracking of web data, drawing correlations between different data points to tell a compelling story. At the moment, unhappy with their technical support, companies are forced to return to manual ways of working to collect web data and monitor regulatory changes in their industries. However, by 2023 – they recognize that the volume of data and the amount of time they spend on this critical task will become overwhelming and that something will need to change.
The need for integrating regulatory tracking into organizational workflows can’t be ignored any longer, and without in-house expertise or capabilities, third-party vendors will be under the spotlight.
76% of companies plan to onboard a new regulatory tracking vendor to close the gaps and help with integrating regulatory tracking into their current workflows. The right solutions for today’s organizations will face the current challenges head-on.
This means that RegTech and Risk Management software developers need to look further than simply educating customers about the value and benefits of automating regulatory web tracking, and also focus on upgrading their data collection to meet the main pain points – keeping track of regulatory changes, reducing the manual effort for today’s companies, and seamlessly integrating regulatory tracking into current workflows.
You can download the full survey report The Top Challenges of Monitoring Regulatory Risk in 2022, and reach out if you look to discuss how your business can better automate your regulatory tracking services with the latest, structured regulatory web data.
