What Is Compliance Management Software? + Why Your Organization Needs It
According to a landmark study by GlobalSCAPE, Inc. and the Ponemon Institute, non-compliance costs 2.71 times the cost of maintaining or meeting compliance requirements. Organizations that fail to meet compliance requirements face legal penalties, fines, business disruption, productivity losses, and reputational damage.
To avoid these risks, businesses need a streamlined approach to compliance.
This article will explore the challenges of compliance, explain how compliance management software can address those challenges, and provide tips for choosing the best solution for your organization. Let’s get started.
The challenges of manual compliance
Many businesses still rely on spreadsheets, word documents, screenshots, and manual processes to manage compliance. This outdated approach presents several challenges.
- Audit fatigue: Organizations that manually manage compliance often experience audit fatigue. Preparing for audits requires extensive documentation gathering, organizing policies, and responding to auditor requests, which places a heavy burden on compliance teams. This repetitive and time-consuming process can lead to employee burnout and inefficiencies in operations.
- Human error: Manual compliance processes are prone to human error. Data entry mistakes, misplaced documents, and overlooked compliance tasks can lead to compliance risks and violations. Without automation, businesses must rely on their teams to track all compliance requirements manually, increasing the likelihood of costly mistakes.
- Inefficiency: Managing compliance manually consumes significant time and resources. Employees must track regulatory and framework updates, document security measures, and ensure all compliance requirements are met without the help of automation. This inefficiency diverts valuable resources away from core business operations, affecting productivity and growth and their security and compliance posture.
- Lack of real-time visibility: Without a centralized compliance platform, businesses struggle to gain real-time visibility into their compliance status. Tracking compliance progress across multiple teams and departments becomes a challenge, leading to delayed responses to potential compliance issues and increased risks.
- Difficulty in scaling: As businesses grow and the regulatory landscape evolves, maintaining compliance through manual processes becomes increasingly difficult. Expanding operations across multiple regions or industries adds complexity to compliance management, making it harder to track different regulatory requirements and enforce consistent policies.
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What is compliance management software?
Compliance management software is a digital solution designed to help organizations automate, track, and maintain compliance with industry regulations and standards. It simplifies compliance by centralizing requirements, controls, policies, tests, risk assessments, and audit logs in a single platform.
This type of software is particularly useful for businesses that need to comply with frameworks such as:
By using a dedicated compliance management tool, companies can efficiently manage regulatory requirements, reduce risks, and maintain audit readiness.
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How compliance management software works
Compliance management software streamlines compliance through automated workflows, integrations to audit-relevant tools and software, and real-time monitoring.
Here’s how it typically functions:
Framework selection and mapping
Users begin by selecting the regulatory and industry frameworks they need to comply with. These frameworks are pre-authored in the compliance management software and their requirements are automatically mapped to controls and tests. This eliminates the need to manually compile, interpret, and map out framework requirements to controls and tests in spreadsheets, saving significant time and effort.
Automated evidence collection
A key feature of compliance software is its ability to automatically collect evidence of adherence to framework requirements. By integrating with cloud services, HR platforms, IT systems, and other tools, compliance management software pulls relevant data in real-time. This eliminates the need for manual collection of screenshots, policy and procedure documents, security awareness completion certificates, configurations, code, documentation, communications, and more, saving vast amounts of time and resources and reducing the risk of errors.
Risk assessment and mitigation
Compliance software helps organizations identify gaps through automated risk assessments. These assessments expedite the analysis of their current-state risk posture and provide actionable recommendations to address vulnerabilities, ensuring businesses can proactively manage risks and compliance issues before they become critical. Some software even automates the remediation process, significantly reducing response times.
Policy and document management
Maintaining up-to-date policies and documentation is crucial for compliance. Compliance management software provides a centralized repository where businesses can store, update, and manage compliance-related documents, ensuring quick access during audits and assessments.
Continuous monitoring
Compliance management software offers real-time compliance tracking, which allows businesses to monitor their security controls continuously. The software provides alerts and notifications when compliance issues arise, allowing teams to address potential issues before they escalate into serious problems or violations.
Audit management
Preparing for and managing audits becomes significantly easier with compliance software. The platform maintains a comprehensive audit trail, organizes compliance documentation, and generates reports that auditors can review quickly, reducing the time and effort required for audit readiness.
Third-party risk management
Many organizations rely on third-parties, including vendors, suppliers, contractors, partners, software providers, open source projects, and other outsourcing. Third-party security is therefore a critical part of overall risk management. Compliance management software streamlines third-party risk management by automating vendor security reviews, tracking compliance requirements, and maintaining an up-to-date risk profile for each external partner. This helps businesses mitigate potential risks posed by their supply chain and ensure vendors adhere to regulatory and security standards.
Personnel management
Employees play a crucial role in maintaining compliance. Compliance management software simplifies personnel management by automatically distributing and tracking employee training and policy acknowledgments. This helps ensure that personnel complete necessary security awareness programs and stay informed about security policies and best practices, which is crucial for meeting compliance requirements. By centralizing personnel management, organizations can more effectively enforce compliance policies and reduce the risk of human error leading to violations.
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Benefits of compliance management software
Using compliance management software provides significant advantages over manual compliance methods.
We surveyed more than 160 small businesses to measure the impact of a compliance management solution, gathering data on cost savings, efficiency gains, and total ROI. Below, we dive into the biggest benefits these businesses have experienced from implementing compliance management software.
1. Saves time
Automation eliminates time-consuming manual tasks, allowing compliance and security teams to focus on higher-value activities. By streamlining compliance processes, organizations can improve operational efficiency and reduce administrative burdens.
On average, organizations report saving 6 hours per week on security and compliance tasks since implementing Secureframe.
2. Improves security posture
Compliance management software can not only help you meet compliance requirements — it can also help you improve your overall security posture. Continuous monitoring and automated risk assessments, among other features, help businesses address risks and security gaps proactively and enhance their security.
70% of Secureframe users reported an improved overall security posture as the top business outcome of using compliance management software.
3. Maintains compliance
Compliance software automatically monitors your tech stack and controls to provide real-time insights into potential vulnerabilities. It can also automate the remediation process, enabling organizations to address compliance issues proactively.
86% of small businesses expressed low confidence in their ability to maintain compliance without an automation platform.
4. Reduces costs
Non-compliance can lead to significant fines, legal penalties, and reputational damage. By automating compliance processes, businesses can reduce the financial risks associated with regulatory violations and avoid costly penalties.
Secureframe users reported a 27% decrease in compliance costs on average.
5. Simplifies audits
Audit preparation is significantly more efficient with compliance management software. All necessary documentation is stored in one place, ensuring that businesses can quickly generate reports and demonstrate compliance during audits.
When asked what benefit they experienced as a result of using compliance management software, 77% of Secureframe customers answered faster and easier audit preparation.
6. Scales with your business
Compliance software is designed to grow with your business. As regulatory requirements evolve and businesses expand, the software adapts to new frameworks, industry standards, and organizational changes, making it a long-term compliance solution.
When asked their biggest challenge prior to implementing compliance management software, the top answer (33%) was navigating the intricacies of security frameworks and regulatory compliance.
How to choose the best compliance management software
Selecting the right compliance software depends on your organization’s needs. Consider the following criteria when evaluating options:
Framework coverage
Ensure that the software supports the compliance standards relevant to your industry. A comprehensive platform should provide built-in support for major frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR.
Automation capabilities
Look for software that offers as much of the end-to-end compliance process as possible, including automated evidence collection, continuous monitoring, risk assessments, remediation, control mapping, third-party risk management, policy management, and more. These automated workflows significantly reduce manual workload and enhance efficiency.
Integration options
Check whether the software integrates with your existing cloud providers, HR systems, and security tools. Seamless integration improves data accuracy and streamlines compliance processes.
User-friendliness
An intuitive interface and user-friendly design reduce the learning curve for your team, ensuring quicker adoption and improved productivity.
Scalability
Choose software that can grow with your business, supporting new regulatory requirements and compliance frameworks as your organization expands.
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Here’s a more detailed breakdown of some features you should consider when evaluating compliance management software vendors:
| Feature | Description |
| Continuous monitoring | Real-time monitoring of control effectiveness and alerts for any deviations |
|---|---|
| Automated evidence collection | Automated gathering and organization of compliance evidence via tests, which show as passing or failing to indicate the health of current controls |
| In-depth, pre-defined integrations | Flexible and deep integrations with hundreds of commonly used systems that contain compliance data (e.g., HR, ERP, CRM), out-of-the-box |
| Automated gap analysis and remediation | Automatically identifies gaps within an existing framework and generates remediation guidance to quickly address any gaps and failing controls |
| Control mapping capabilities | Controls and tests are mapped to multiple framework requirements simultaneously to reduce duplicate work and speed up time-to-compliance |
| Policy management and templates | Centralized management and enforcement of compliance policies and templates written and approved by former auditors |
| Vendor risk management | Oversight and tracking of compliance status among third-party vendors |
| Reports and dashboards | Ability to share and export detailed compliance reports and dashboards for analysis of compliance and risk programs |
| Risk management | End-to-end solution for the identification, assessment, and mitigation of compliance-related risks, including customization options like custom scoring and tags |
| Task management and notifications | Assignment and tracking of compliance tasks with automated notifications |
| Personnel management | Management of user roles, permissions, and training related to security and compliance best practices for different employee groups or departments |
| Security training | Automation for the assignment, tracking, and notifications of relevant training to employees to ensure compliance with various frameworks |
| Trust Center | Customizable and centralized hub for all security and compliance-related information and documents |
| Out-of-the-box frameworks | Supports dozens of frameworks out-of-the-box, including the ones on your immediate and long-term roadmap |
| Expert support | Offers dedicated resources (e.g., dedicated account managers and technical support staff including compliance experts) during all phases, including implementation, onboarding, Proof of Concept, and post-audit, with fast response times |
| Easy-to-use UI | An intuitive UI and seamless user experience, requiring minimal clicks and tabs to complete routine tasks and providing an easy navigation system |
| Scalability | Offers pricing tiers to accommodate growth in employee numbers and compliance requirements, and maintains performance as number of users and integrated systems increase |
Why customers choose Secureframe for compliance management software
Managing compliance manually is time-consuming and prone to errors. Compliance management software simplifies and automates compliance processes, ensuring businesses stay secure and audit-ready — but not all software is created equal.
Secureframe offers an all-in-one platform for compliance management, helping businesses navigate complex regulations and industry standards with confidence and efficiency. If you’re looking for a solution to operationalize your security and compliance program, Secureframe is a top choice.
Here’s why customers choose Secureframe, according to a survey by UserEvidence:
- Stronger security: 97% of Secureframe users strengthened their security and compliance posture.
- Faster compliance: 89% of Secureframe users sped up time-to-compliance for multiple frameworks.
- Reduced costs: 85% of Secureframe users unlocked annual cost savings.
- Improved visibility: 71% of Secureframe users improved visibility into their security and compliance posture.
- Accelerated deals: 66% of Secureframe users accelerated sales cycles.
Want to see Secureframe in action? Request a demo today.
About the UserEvidence Survey
The data about Secureframe users was obtained through an online survey conducted by UserEvidence in December 2024. The survey included responses from over 150 Secureframe users (the majority of whom were manager-level or above) across the information technology, consumer discretionary, industrials, financial, and healthcare industries.
FAQs
How does compliance management software improve efficiency?
Compliance management software automates repetitive tasks such as evidence collection, policy management, and risk assessments, reducing the manual effort required to maintain compliance. This allows businesses to allocate resources more effectively and focus on other strategic initiatives like product development.
Can compliance management software integrate with existing business tools?
Yes, most compliance management software solutions integrate with a wide range of cloud platforms, security tools, HR systems, and other business applications. These integrations enable seamless evidence collection and improve visibility into compliance status across an organization.
How does compliance software help with audit readiness?
Compliance software maintains an organized repository of compliance documents, tracks security controls in real-time, and generates reports that streamline the audit process. Many solutions also include automated workflows for continuous monitoring, risk assessments, remediation, and more to help businesses stay prepared for audits year-round.
What industries benefit the most from compliance management software?
Industries that handle sensitive data, such as healthcare, finance, technology, and government contractors, benefit significantly from compliance management software. These tools help organizations meet strict regulatory requirements and safeguard confidential information. However, compliance management software can benefit organizations of all industries and sizes by helping them achieve and maintain compliance more efficiently, build trust with their customers, and move upmarket.
What is regulatory compliance management software vs compliance management software?
Regulatory compliance management software helps businesses adhere to industry-specific laws and regulations by automating compliance processes, tracking regulatory changes, and managing documentation. It ensures that organizations meet legal and security standards efficiently. Compliance management software has a broader scope, helping businesses adhere to regulations as well as industry standards and frameworks that may not be legally required, but are required by customers or adopted voluntarily to improve the organization’s security posture.
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