“If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance.” How precisely former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty hits the nail on the head with his words is reflected in the financial costs, which average in the tens of millions, that a company faces for non-compliance. Closely linked to compliance is also the security and data protection around sensitive data in a company. The more data there is, the better specific process optimizations can be made when using it, which is of enormous importance for the company of the future. Like so many things, however, there is of course a flip side to this issue: More data also means more risks. Especially when it comes to data from customers and partners. This means that more and more has to be invested to ensure security and compliance in a company. Today, entire legal departments are dealing with an enormous amount of data in order to protect their company from all emerging risks. However, the policies and requirements are so stringent, the constant law changes and adjustments ongoing processes, that the workload, if done manually, has become almost an unmanageable one. It’s just a good thing that digital transformation has spawned technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA). With the help of RPA, legal departments in a company can once again fully focus on the task at which they are most effective – practicing law.
RPA and its rapid integration has once again become massively important for companies, not least because of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the micro-level, the main beneficiaries of automation are the usual suspects, including general process optimization and error minimization by eliminating manual work. However, the assistance and relief provided by RPA do not end here by a long shot. RPA equally brings significant macro-level benefits to organizations in terms of data security and compliance, which also puts RPA squarely in pole position in this area.
Even though security and compliance have always been important issues for companies, these topics have become even more explosive in recent years. On the one hand, this has to do with the fact that compliance violations have occurred from time to time in the past, and on the other hand, that the complexity surrounding regulations and standards continues to increase. For companies, especially multinationals, which have to comply with the laws and guidelines of various countries, the constant adaptation of compliance has thus become a necessity and thus a serious and firmly integrated business process. Because non-compliance does not only result in high fines, a medium or even long-term damage to the company’s image is often one of the further inglorious consequences.
RPA is perfectly suited here in many respects, for maintaining and improving compliance, preventing non-compliance and for the security and protection of the huge amount of sensitive data. Looking at the individual benefits of RPA integration, it looks like this:
- Increased security: As mentioned at the beginning, the large amount of data is both a curse and a blessing. However, RPA displaces the curse by completely eliminating manual processing by humans and thus previously risky and error-prone work or even viewing sensitive data such as payment information and customer data. RPA takes the data for what it is and cares precious little about anything else, which also represents a significant increase in security and a reduction in risk in the processing of sensitive data in terms of data protection
- Better control: By integrating RPA, companies can keep their processes in-house, which improves control and oversight
- Compliance: As seen before, compliance is essential for companies. With RPA, all processes can be carried out in real-time and always in compliance with the rules. In the event of audits by the government or even lawsuits from customers, a company can use RPA to demonstrate perfect compliance and reject non-compliance
- Modernization of compliance: RPA helps companies to keep their compliance always top-notch
- Relief for employees: By integrating RPA into the complex processes surrounding security and compliance, employees or, depending on the case, entire legal departments are massively relieved of workload, freeing up valuable resources for more important tasks
So RPA not only provides relief for employees and will probably become the legal department’s best friend in the future, but is also a true asset for companies by mastering the challenges around security and compliance with confidence.
