Regulatory Compliance

Increasing compliance regulations and required audits, both internal and external, mean keeping track of necessary documents is more important than ever.

Can you give me an example? 

One of the best examples is the recent overhaul of the U.S. food-safety system, which calls for an increase in government inspections at food processing facilities and gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the ability to order mandatory recalls of unsafe food. Part of the recall process requires manufacturers to provide remote access to critical records and documentation to the FDA for investigation and audit purposes.

That's a nightmare come true for food producers with scattered and disorganized document management. One that could mean disaster to the business – from lost revenue to facility closure. After all, a typical FDA recall can cost millions of dollars.

Work in financial services? Think of how much sleep you'll get knowing how your carefully considered, strategically implemented ECM solution is keeping an eye on your Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance requirements and helping manage regulatory compliance costs, nearly $2 million annually for companies with average revenues of $4.7 billion, according to a Financial Executives International survey.

The solution

An enterprise content management (ECM) solution can ease minds and facilitate audits and other compliance requirements. In fact, most manufacturing organizations realize their biggest cost savings from existing auditing costs, including remote, secure access to critical documentation, after implementing a smart ECM solution.

Furthermore, the right records management solution will manage length of retention and final disposition of documents. In other words, give your document an expiration date and it will automatically delete when the date arrives (or send you an email to let you know it's time to purge the document and allow you to review and approve the deletion).

Enterprise content management also:

• Increases response to changing compliance regulations and instantly distributes updates
• Stores and communicates changes without copying and handing out changes
• Provides high-level safety and compliance dashboard to your compliance officer to reduce risk in real-time
• Manages the retention of stored documents according to pre-defined rules to support compliance and minimize legal risks