Dynamic Publishing: Compliance and Risk Management in the Digital World

Transcription

1 Dynamic Publishing: Compliance and Risk Management in the Digital World WHITE PAPER Sponsored by: Quark Marc DeCastro October 2012 Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F IN THIS WHITE PAPER This IDC Financial Insights White Paper sponsored by Quark looks at the challenges faced by the financial industry in managing the growing amount of content for standard operating procedures (SOPs), contracts, internal policies, and compliance-related documentation. Most systems in place today are derived primarily from simple productivity software solutions, desktop software, or content management systems deployed on the corporate intranet. This paper explores the driving forces behind the need to automate the creation, management, and dissemination of smart, structured content through the adoption of dynamic publishing systems. This approach reduces the risks associated with regulated content and allows content to be created once and published across print, Web, and digital channels. METHODOLOGY During July and August 2012, IDC Financial Insights conducted multiple in-depth interviews with senior executives of banks, insurance companies, and investment service firms. The results of these interviews and other research around workflow management and dynamic publishing are included in this document. SITUATION OVERVIEW Current Challenges It is no secret that the financial services industries like their paper. In fact, paperless initiatives have been around for many years, often falling short of their projected outcomes. The failures occur for many reasons; first and foremost, organizations try to replace paper using their current systems rather than optimize existing infrastructure to enable an efficient workflow. Optimized, efficient workflows allow content to be reused and repurposed to take advantage of the Web and digital channels that are widely preferred today. From this perspective, there are significant opportunities for improvement in the October 2012, IDC Financial Insights #FIN237293

2 management, editing, and distribution of SOPs, contracts, internal policies, and compliance-related documentation. SOPs need constant modification. In the enterprise, all departments need access and rights to view and modify SOPs in addition to the ability to manage contracts, policies, and a multitude of business documents. There are also geographical challenges, particularly for organizations with offices located around the globe. Today's practice of placing content on shared drives is a fallback position given the technology available today. The shared approach is neither the most efficient nor the best use of IT's time. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for SOPs and contracts to benefit from automated modifications based on the requirements of a particular region. For example, needs and requirements in the United States may be vastly different from needs and requirements in Brazil. Organizations have a fundamental need to ensure consistency when dealing with automated content systems. This consistency cannot be achieved simply with shared drives and . Our research shows that while remains a tool for document collaboration, it is inefficient and incapable of providing appropriate audit controls for a document. Consistency needs to come from a single source of content creation and management. A single source provides a more harmonized structure to the content across documents around the globe and will lead to cost savings. Financial service firms are constantly under surveillance from internal and external auditors and regulators. Often, these audits require full access to SOPs and contracts, which means that business units need to work with legal, operations, and IT departments to ensure the correct documents can be provided to examiners. As a result, firms often are scrambling for information and end up providing examiners with inconsistent documents, which creates unnecessary burdens on organizations and examiners to obtain the correct information. Implementing and retaining governance of a structured SOP process will greatly alleviate the pain of an exam or an audit. Another challenge faced by enterprises involves the budget. Our research shows that despite having an acceptable return on investment (ROI), projects that focus on back-office improvements are often shelved in favor of customer-facing solutions. Some projects are even canceled prior to completion, providing an inconsistent and inefficient process that still requires manual intervention. Senior management needs to demonstrate a strong commitment to investing in content management systems that are optimized to enable dynamic publishing. One of the greatest challenges organizations struggle with is content reuse. Many procedures have "boilerplate" language that needs to be used and may be changed at times. For example, if an SOP has been written in which the first step is to log on to a Novell server, what happens when the Page 2 #FIN IDC Financial Insights

3 organization switches its Novell servers to Microsoft or Unix? Without a dynamic publishing system in place, the organization will need to manually review all procedures to ensure that they have the correct call to action based on the server environment. Current Environments Our research indicates that organizations are managing their content in multiple ways. Most organizations already have made significant investments in Microsoft Office, as well as content management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint, IBM FileNet Content Manager, or EMC Documentum, and are not necessarily looking for another solution. In addition, and shared drives are often the extent of how organizations manage content, making edits in Microsoft Word and ing changes to the next individual. Some financial service firms have even developed a hybrid approach, using an internally developed solution on top of their existing environment to help manage content. This provides a significant opportunity to leverage existing technology with a software solution that can provide an automated and dynamic workflow for the creation and delivery of content. Corporate shared drive intranets are often used; however, there are concerns that this use of the intranet is simply creating more opportunities to silo data and replicate content. IDC Financial Insights believes most financial institutions have data duplicated in 10 different locations in various forms. Unnecessarily replicating data creates an incredible risk. Versioning is also important to SOP writers as well as those working on contract negotiations. Having old copies of contracts in silos throughout the network may create unnecessary rework or allow information to be shared externally without the proper controls and content protection processes in place. Overall, financial institutions' satisfaction level with existing content management systems and processes to manage SOPs and contracts is very low. Organizations are not currently investing in dynamic publishing systems because they perceive switching costs to be high and because there are not enough resources, in terms of both budget and man-hours, to change the current environment. IDC Financial Insights believes that this view is short-sighted. We feel that more automation needs to be in place, and this will occur only if organizations recognize the hidden costs and risk inherent in the current processes. These hidden costs, which are often the most difficult to identify, include decreased operational efficiency, duplication of content, potential system downtime due to difficulty in tracking an up-to-date procedure, and increased time spent on collecting documents for audits and reviews IDC Financial Insights #FIN Page 3

4 FUTURE OUTLOOK Considerations There are times when technology is implemented just for technology's sake. Often, institutions have a "ready, fire, aim" approach, particularly when exciting new technology is being developed. While content management has been around for a while, the ability to control content dynamically and produce it across numerous technological platforms is relatively new. Financial institutions should consider several factors when they are looking to implement a dynamic publishing system. For this document, we are looking primarily at using content management to manage SOPs and contracts, but the reality is that once this capability is in place, there will be multiple processes that would benefit. Examples include content in employee and customer communications, research documents, product information, and IT specifications, along with employee and customer forms management. Considerations include the following: A team approach is necessary (IT, legal, risk, compliance, customer service, product, and executive management). For global organizations, this is especially true. Buy-in must be driven from the top of the organization. Avoid turf wars over content. IT most likely will drive a content management system, but for larger organizations, it may be the IT team sitting within the business units and not necessarily enterprise IT. Employees may initially not feel comfortable (i.e., job security) about putting content into the system. Ensure employees that automation will benefit their jobs and allow them to better allocate their time. Focus on developing governance on content first, and then look at workflows before engaging in an automated system. Look for areas where data is duplicated and use those examples to demonstrate the value of dynamic publishing. Searching for documents needs to be easy Google for policies. Given the heavy investments in content management systems from Microsoft, IBM, and EMC, solutions should leverage these existing investments, not replace them. Identify immediate needs around document management focused on improving document workflow and provide tools to track historical changes made to documents for audit purposes. The ability to reuse content and distribute content across many SOPs or contracts will be a significant time saver and will ensure the integrity of the document. Page 4 #FIN IDC Financial Insights

5 Opportunities For a dynamic publishing solution to achieve success, certain key objectives should be addressed. First, there needs to be governance around managing the entire content life cycle. This means there has to be an ease to finding, editing, tracking, auditing, and reviewing documents. There also has to be a way to allocate resources and capacity among the various stakeholders in order to achieve success. One approach is a dashboard application that shows where content lives and where it stands in the life cycle. The solution should also be extensible and be able to leverage existing investments. Implementations of these solutions should be straightforward given the limited bandwidth to manage large-scale projects. Projects that do not directly impact the customer may also have more difficulty gaining approval. Therefore, the ROI must demonstrate an improved workflow, reduction of duplicated data, and streamlined audits in order to obtain the necessary approval. For organizations that are publishing oriented or developing customer-facing news and information, a dynamic publishing solution might be more justified, and the SOP and contract benefits may be an additional benefit. Financial institutions need to identify the areas where content reuse makes sense and act accordingly. Dynamic publishing solutions must provide the ability to publish across multiple channels and to manage the content as components and not monolithic documents. Content should be looked at as small, manageable components that make up larger pieces of work, not the other way around. Smaller components provide better ways to "repurpose" content and to make one change that properly impacts numerous documents. This management needs to occur seamlessly in both physical and digital formats. In addition, the content needs to be digitally displayed across numerous devices, including PCs and desktops, the Web, notebooks, tablets, ereaders, and mobile devices. While mobile devices may not necessarily be used for modifications to existing contracts or SOPs, they may be used in the field to troubleshoot a production issue, assist a customer with a complex transaction, or provide a customer newsletter. Additionally, the content must come together in a way that improves operational efficiencies for both the publisher and the consumer of the content. This means automatic assembly of content as well as improved search capabilities for the consumer. Furthermore, the solution needs to come from a vendor with a track record of success and a long-term understanding of content creation and management. While the industry is truly global, our research shows that having a local presence in the host country is preferred. Any dynamic publishing solution will likely be in place for years to come, so a commitment to the business from the vendor will be key to a successful and long-term relationship IDC Financial Insights #FIN Page 5

6 CONCLUSIONS This IDC Financial Insights White Paper sponsored by Quark assesses the challenges faced by the financial industry in managing content. While we focused the research on the growing number of standard operating procedures, contracts, internal policies, and compliance-related documentation, the reality is that content is exploding, and with limited governance in place, it will soon be unmanageable. The content strategy described in this paper can be applied to the development of SOPs and related content as well as retail marketing, IT specification management, wealth management, and research reporting, for example. Existing solutions do not seem to fully address the needs of those responsible for developing content or those who are consuming the information. Most organizations have a real need to move beyond their current environments, which use a mix of file sharing, , and perhaps a small document management systems. Organizations require solutions that can leverage existing investments in infrastructure, provide better collaboration among departments that often are in different countries, and facilitate internal and external examination requirements in an easy-tomanage publishing system. Historically, institutions may have looked to develop these solutions internally, but the complexity of dynamic publishing has reached a point where it is likely better to buy than to build. Most of the systems in place today are derived primarily from simple productivity software solutions, desktop software, or content management systems deployed on the corporate intranet. These systems are often cobbled together from various platforms, are inefficient for both IT and end users, and require manual efforts to gather information. We have reached a tipping point where the cost of doing nothing for most organizations exceeds the cost of implementing an automated solution. A solid dynamic publishing strategy that works in conjunction with content management systems will allow organizations to leverage their existing investments into an easy-to-use solution that should provide the ROI needed for approval. Copyright Notice Copyright 2012 IDC Financial Insights. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden. External Publication of IDC Financial Insights Information and Data: Any IDC Financial Insights information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Financial Insights Vice President. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC Financial Insights reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any reason. This document was reprinted by Quark with permission from IDC Financial Insights. Page 6 #FIN IDC Financial Insights