Not sure who in your company is responsible for coming up with which numbers? Not sure whether you even have all the numbers? The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 means companies have to find answers to these questions–fast.
And as corporations scramble to comply, technology companies not surprisingly are scrambling to help them with new products or new ways to employ existing ones.
Here are two examples:
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Cleveland-based Axentis LLC has a Web-based product, Axentis Enterprise, designed to provide corporations with a complete compliance platform. "If you look at the root of the problem for many organizations, it's that they lack clear accountability," says Axentis CEO Ted Frank.
Enterprise's accountability matrix allows companies to group employees according to which regulations they must comply with or enforce. An employee could belong to multiple groups, depending on how many regulations he or she is subject to.
Other modules contain the requirements for each regulation and information linked to the requirements. The system automatically notifies employees of what they need to do to comply with regulations, which could be as simple as reading a memo. There are audit features, including the ability to survey employees, and a reporting module.
One notable feature is that Enterprise looks for problems and recommends solutions, says Ronni Marshak, a senior vice president at Patricia Seybold Group, a technology consulting company in Boston. When the system spots a gap in compliance, "it actually proactively notifies people and sends suggestions on how to get them back into compliance," she says.
Enterprise can be integrated with other systems. For example, a company could hook it up to its human resources system, so that the accountability matrix was automatically updated as employees were hired or changed positions.
While Axentis originally targeted companies in the highly regulated pharmaceutical and financial services industries, Frank says he's seeing interest from a wide range of companies in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley. Axentis charges an annual license of about $60 per user for Enterprise; integration costs are separate.
Another company, Steelpoint Technologies, says its software, Introspect, which was designed to support complex litigation, can aid in compliance as well. Both litigation and compliance involve organizing vast amounts of information, says Mark Jesser, a vice president at Boston-based Steelpoint. "Companies are asking us to use [Introspect] to deal with compliance issues, to help mine and search information to make sure [they're] not making contradictory statements."
Companies determine where their compliance risks are and then set up searches in those areas, Jesser says.
The cost of licensing Introspect starts at $50,000 and using the ASP version starts at $5,000 a month.
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