September 29, 2023

How a Culture of Compliance Can Elevate Your Business

Devon Lane
Content writer
at Flowbase

Here at Marana, we love talking about security and compliance. It’s what we do. That said, we know that not everyone has the same passion for these topics as we do — and we know that trying to make them interesting to marketers or engineers or sales reps isn’t an easy task. 

The thing is, if you’re really looking to make your company compliant with industry standards like SOC 2, you need your whole workforce on board. True compliance can’t really happen if you don’t have everyone on the same page about the role security plays in making your business successful. 

To really get everyone involved, you need to establish a culture of compliance that gets everyone excited about meeting requirements and prioritizing security. 

If that sounds challenging, it’s because it is. Embedding a culture of compliance won’t happen overnight — but the benefits will be extensive. In this post, we’re taking a closer look at what it means to operate in a culture of compliance and best practices for making it happen.

What Does a Culture of Compliance Look Like?

A culture of compliance exists when the whole workforce is dedicated to abiding by the same mission, values, standards, and practices that prioritize compliance. Within a culture of compliance, leaders and employees are informed and aligned regarding the value of security measures, data protection, and other important practices. 

This approach is particularly important for businesses that operate in highly regulated industries — which increasingly applies to all companies that offer a technology solution and collect data. The risks of not building a culture of compliance include lack of alignment in decision making, a potential for security vulnerabilities, and falling into non-compliance with industry regulations and standards (which can also negatively impact customer trust and the bottom line).

What Are the Benefits of Prioritizing Compliance?

Putting compliance at the heart of how your teams can actually do a lot to set your business up for success. These benefits include: 

  • Reduced reputational and financial risk.
  • Increased trust from customers (which leads to increased spending and referrals).
  • A healthier bottom line.
  • The ability to quickly respond to evolving regulatory requirements.
  • More alignment between teams.
  • Room and time to focus on creativity and innovative business initiatives.

In other words, a culture of compliance can help future-proof your business and put it on the path to increased success. 

How Do You Create a Culture of Compliance?

The way we see it, there are four core ways to establish a culture of compliance. 

1. Get Your Executives on Board

Your leadership team is responsible for setting the direction for your company — and for determining what the workplace culture should look like. Getting them aligned on the value of compliance will be crucial to ensure the rest of the organization follows suit. Talk to each of your executives and highlight how compliance will help them meet their own departmental goals. 

For instance, you can remind your CEO and CFO that prioritizing security and compliance will help protect customers while also ensuring that employees are efficient and effective (all good things for the bottom line). Meanwhile, your CTO will be interested in knowing that by operating in a culture of compliance, their engineers can be better equipped to focus on their own core competencies without being held back by security. 

2. Align Your Efforts with the Organization’s Overall Goals

Your team members already operate in an environment that’s framed by the corporate goals and values — these core elements are equal parts important and familiar. As you evaluate how to introduce compliance efforts, take the list of goals and values and see how each one supports your initiatives. Do the exercise of writing down these connections, and then present them back to the company either in team meetings or town halls. 

This way, the next time you ask team members to make a compliance-related change, you can relate it back to a value or goal they recognize.

3. Give Room for Feedback

If you don’t give people a chance to respond to your initiatives and changes, they’re more likely to complain than anything else. Our suggestion, instead, is to set clear expectations around where you’ll need everyone’s help and how involved they’ll need to be. Having a roadmap or calendar of requests can be useful here. 

Alongside that, keep the door open for questions and recommendations. People may want to know more or might have an idea for how to execute a particular compliance initiative in a different way. 

4. Have Fun

Security and compliance don’t have to be boring topics. Consider gamifying some of the rollouts you make. For example, if you’re rolling out multi-factor authentication, consider giving out a prize to the first ten people who add their factors. If you do this with enough initiatives, you can have a Compliance Leaderboard with a Champion that’s announced at the end of every month.

You could also have compliance-related trivia events or create a mascot for your compliance communications. This will help people rethink how they see security and compliance, and encourage them to participate more actively.

Compliance is an increasingly important part of any company — but it’s not always easy to prioritize it. We hope these tips help you better engage with the rest of your team, so you can build a strong culture of compliance.

At Marana, we take a comprehensive approach to helping companies achieve SOC 2 compliance. Keen to learn more about how we do it? Let’s chat.

We’re here to help.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt.

Get Started
LEARN MORE!
Responsive Components
Responsive Components
Responsive Components
Hey! Have any questions?

Frequently Asked
Questions

What type of compliance standard can you help with?

We help our clients based on their needs. The majority of our contracts involve SOC-2, HIPAA, and most recently GDPR. Feel free to ask us if we can help with your particular case. If we aren't able to, we can most likely recommend you to someone who can.

How long does a SOC 2 engagement usually take?

We move as fast as our clients are able to make progress. Our fastest client to date got their SOC-2 Type I four months after signing our engagement letter. That record is up for grab if you are up for it.

In our experience however, it takes 6-9 months to achieve a SOC-2 Type I,  and 3-6 additional months to obtain a SOC-2 Type II report.

Which standard do you follow for your security policies?

All of our security policies follow the ISO-27001 standard. The Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability standards cover the range of standards we like to work with for SOC 2.

Why do we have to become SOC 2 compliant if we are relying on AWS which is already compliant?

SOC 2 stands for Service Organization Control, meaning your clients are interested in understanding your controls, not your hosting provider’s control. As part of your vendor assessment we recommend reviewing AWS’ SOC 2 report, but relying on their report is not enough to become SOC 2 compliant.

Who is behind SOC 2?

The American Institute of CPAs. The AICPA is an established and respected organization that provides two forms of audits to companies that demonstrate evidence of a secure data-protection infrastructure. A Type I is a point in time audit that addresses the company’s description of its system, the suitability of the system’s design, and the effectiveness of its internal data controls. A Type II report happens over a period of time and emphasizes design and also focuses on the validity of the company’s controls.

Are SOC 2 reports a legal obligation?

No, but most enterprise level organizations that engage with sensitive data (again, almost all of them) have an obligation to their stakeholders to prove due diligence regarding data security, which means they’ll want to vet their service providers using this tool. SOC 2 can help these prospective service providers set themselves apart from the competition. Just as important, a SOC 2 report represents a meaningful and respected signifier of trust.

What can happen to a company without a SOC 2 report?

A lack of a SOC 2 report won’t result in legal problems, but it can and will limit outside assessments of the company’s commitment to data security. When large-scale clients look for providers, or large-scale backers look for a likely return on their investment, they don’t want concerns about security to stand in the way. Trust is a chain made of links that have each been put the test and have proven their ability to withstand pressure and scrutiny. Company leaders are wise to let SOC 2 auditors apply this pressure so their clients and backers don’t have to.

When is it too late for a SOC 2 audit?

Never. Even companies that have been in business for years but have never obtained a SOC 2 report can—and should—take steps in this direction now. Being compliant with SOC 2 can open the door to a broader base of more significant clients and larger contract opportunities. That being said, startups in the threshold of the marketplace, and new business owners who hope for an eventual public offering, should obtain a SOC 2 report during the development and financing process. By the time the company approaches Series B and C fundraising rounds, a report should be in hand.

How complicated is the auditing process?

The auditing process can be easy, or complicated depending on your level of preparation.

Preparing for the audit can take some time, attention, and the guidance of reliable data security experts. Don’t leave any part of this process to chance. Approach SOC 2 compliance one step at a time, and start by contacting a consulting firm with track record of experience in your area of the marketplace.

Home
Resources
Contact
Raze™ All Rights Reserved, 2022.
Style Guide
Licence
Changelog