Increased Government Oversight to Affect Business Information Management Requirements

Anyone who has been paying attention will be aware that there are bold changes afoot in the way government relates to industry. Whether you approve of the changes or not does not really matter. The changes will affect all businesses either way. Those who do not recognize this will be left behind.

Increased government oversight will take many forms. In some cases it will require businesses to maintain higher standards of transparency. This is especially true of banks and insurance companies. In order for these institutions to satisfy their new requirements, they will be forced to impose new requirements on their customers. So any business that insures itself or its key employees or that borrows money in any form will be affected by these changes directly.

Government oversight may also take the form of increased regulation. In the past, legislation that impacted corporate America generally provided guidelines for behavior and was aimed principally at protecting consumers or maintaining fair trade practices. This paradigm has begun to shift to the government dictating how businesses must operate. This will certainly be true of financial institutions that have accepted TARP money or other government assistance. Because these institutions include some of the nation’s largest, the government will begin to make demands of its customers in order to maintain control over policy implementation and protect taxpayers. We’ve already started to see the government (rightly or wrongly) starting to determine executive pay. This will certainly trickle down to other industries directly or indirectly and will impact competitiveness as key players flee to foreign institutions.

Additionally, a trend that can be clearly seen in today’s headlines is increased government involvement in the boardroom. It is highly likely that new laws will be passed that hold corporate boards directly responsible for what could be perceived as taking unnecessary risks. Maintaining a consistent track record of all decisions and how they were arrived at will be paramount to limiting this risk.

Protecting personal data will also most likely remain center stage. Already, many states have enacted rules and regulations that require industries that deal with personal data to perform their duties in specific ways. An example would be the impending changes in the accounting industry that require all documents with personal information to be encrypted or otherwise protected by 2010. This will in many cases, especially with smaller firms, require a change in workflow or an investment in technology in order to comply. Many firms simply don’t have the knowledge or skills to implement the right kind of plan for their business to stay in compliance.
Businesses need to be prepared to operate in this more challenging environment. Those businesses that are successful will have solid plans for the following:

• Protecting client information, personal or otherwise.
• Maintaining a detailed corporate library of key internal documents and any changes over time.
• Implementing transparent corporate governance protocols.

There are plenty of solutions out there to help companies manage their business information. Some simple subscription based services, such as Praura (see www.praura.com) will go a long way towards helping these smaller firms manage their information intelligently without breaking the bank.