Compliance: A Competitive Advantage

Compliance can actually be a competitive advantage.

Yes, compliance can be a pain in the butt.

Yes, the current administration has been eliminating a lot of regulations so for some industries, compliance has become somewhat easier.

But, no, not all compliance regulations are not going away, and, no, not all regulations are evil. A world without any regulations would be a difficult place to do business and consumers and companies alike would be at the mercy of bad players with no recourse. Regulations are necessary, although we are not going to get into the debate of how many are good and how many are bad.

The question for you, as the owner or an executive in a small to mid-sized business, is how to not only follow the rules, but use the fact that you are in compliance as a competitive advantage. Look, you have to follow the rules anyway, so use them to your advantage.

Not long ago, we published a full White Paper: “Compliance as a Competitive Advantage”. In it, we looked at a number of ideas. We started with the riskiness of non-compliance and the negative press that can follow. We discussed the large fines that can be incurred, including a $50,000 fine to a hospice that had a laptop with unsecured patient records stolen.

We also talked about the Public Relations nightmare that can occur. No, if you are running a small to mid-sized business here in Atlanta, your compliance shortcomings aren’t going to make the CBS Evening News, but you can definitely expect them to make all the local affiliates at 4 PM, 5 PM, 6 PM, 11 PM and again at 5 AM and 6 AM the next morning.

You’ve heard that there is no such thing as bad publicity? Don’t believe it because the next thing that will be affected is the confidence of your clients/customers. Your company doesn’t have the staying power or the public relations budget of Home Depot, Sony, Target or the other major national and international firms that have been hit by these scandals. In fact, statistics show that up to 60% of SMBs that have been hit with compliance scandals (this includes data breaches, etc.) either never reopen or close permanently within six months.

We strongly suggest you read the full White Paper, then look at the series of Compliance web pages we also published recently. Start here: Compliance: Getting Started, and in the lower right corner you will see links to a whole series of short but highly informative web pages on a series of compliance-related subjects.

Here’s the thing about compliance: it should be one of those things that you just do and do right so that so that it never becomes a major issue. Here at DynaSis, as a managed IT support provider here in Atlanta, we have been helping companies with compliance for more than 25 years. Give us a call and we can discuss your needs. 678-373-0716.