Regulatory compliance is one of the most strategically important components of business operations. However, most companies still treat compliance as a box-checking exercise. While executives champion cultures of integrity, industry benchmarks reveal that surface-level tracking remains the norm.

Regulatory compliance is a fact of life for organizations of all sizes and in every industry. Many regulatory requirements touch the IT environment, including data privacy and protection, records retention, financial reporting, and more. Organizations that don’t meet these requirements could face fines and penalties and lose their ability to compete in the global marketplace.

Before 2010, the federal government had a patchwork approach to protecting controlled unclassified information (CUI). Each group had its own ad hoc, agency-specific policies and procedures, leading to confusion, inconsistency and inefficiency. In November 2010, the White House issued Executive Order 13556, establishing an open and uniform standard for safeguarding CUI across civilian and defense agencies.