Compliance Technology: Friend or Foe of Consulting Firms?

As part of the channel development department for 360factors, it is my job to create partnerships and build strong relationships with companies, such as consulting firms. Throughout my time here, I have encountered a similar fear that seems to be haunting consulting firms as we show them our integrated, automated regulatory compliance software. It really does a great job in automating difficult processes and tasks that consultants tend to get an overwhelming sense that software is ultimately replacing them.

Allow your anxieties to be calmed because there will never be a day that software will completely replace humans. Laws, standards, and regulations are written by people to be interpreted by people.

Our CEO, Ed Sattar, always describes the three i’s of the law:

• The intent of the law
• Interpretation of the law
• Implementation of the law

All three i’s require the thoughts, opinions, experiences, and actions of people in order to make sense and be carried out properly. While compliance solutions are not built with the intention of replacing consulting firms, they are able to scale their business practices so that consultants can focus on high level consulting and take on more clients as a result.

With the right technology, consulting firms can focus time and energy on the areas of higher importance and leave the low-level consulting to be automated by GRC software. I have said it once, and I will say it again. Software platforms are just tools to simplify compliance. The key to true compliance success will always stem from people.

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