Snowflake Connect: AI on January 27
Unlock the full potential of data and AI with Snowflake’s latest innovations.
Exploding data volumes, relentless ransomware attacks, rising privacy concerns around AI and growing scrutiny of corporate carbon footprints have turned compliance into a front-line issue. Organizations are under constant pressure to show that their practices meet both legal requirements and public expectations. It’s rarely simple.
Yet, robust compliance processes can also provide a competitive edge. Companies that are able to demonstrate leadership in data management, security, privacy and environmental sustainability — some of the core components to meeting compliance requirements — can earn customer trust, attract investors and strengthen brand reputation.
Recognizing this, many progressive organizations are focused on implementing robust compliance monitoring programs and establishing dedicated teams to reduce risk and demonstrate their adherence to both internal and external standards.
Compliance monitoring is the continuous process of evaluating whether an organization’s systems, processes and behaviors align with regulatory, legal and corporate policy requirements.
In the United States and United Kingdom, most businesses are required by regulation to have some form of compliance monitoring in place. But with few set standards to guide them, companies often have to figure it out on their own. Some build their own compliance tools and processes. Others turn to third-party solutions or outside service providers and many take a hybrid approach that blends both options.
Compliance monitoring helps turn corporate aspirations into evidence. It provides real-time visibility to identify gaps, remediate issues and prevent costly surprises during audits or incidents.
Monitoring also helps ensure that compliance isn’t only reactive. Instead of scrambling at the last second to assemble documentation or rushing to fix something under deadline pressure, it helps organizations become more programmatic and able to build cultures of responsibility and accountability.
Such approaches help organizations contend with the rising wave of data management and privacy regulations coming at them from governments, trade authorities, industry standards bodies and other groups able to investigate and take action, including levying fines for findings of non-compliance.
To be successful, compliance monitoring should be programmatic and comprehensive, and involve multiple stakeholders, policies and business processes. It should also be baked into corporate culture.
Most compliance monitoring systems share a core set of components, including:
Whether through processes, software or ideally both, organizations need to be able to map their policies, procedures and controls to their requirements. This may include having a living library of shifting global laws, rules and guidelines as well as approaches for comparing an organization’s controls against them.
Regulations never stand still. Neither do IT systems or internal processes. Continuous monitoring can help organizations spot misalignments in real time and head off issues that might land them in hot water with regulators, investors or the general public. It’s like having a security camera that’s always watching for trouble and alerts you whenever something unusual comes into view.
Audit management is also a critical part of this process. You need a system for maintaining detailed logs of document histories — from the moment users create or modify files, to when people or machines access them. This will serve as evidence of your compliance practices.
Beyond simply watching for issues, companies in regulated industries often need established metrics to assess their risk exposure, especially as it relates to their regulatory requirements. Regulators and auditors typically require demonstrable evidence that a company is fulfilling its obligations. Vague assurances will not suffice. As such, companies may need detailed report cards that grade their performance against any internal or external regulations applying to them, including in areas of data management, security, privacy and sustainability.
Compliance is a complex and tedious process, so it’s essential to have automated systems in place for streamlining and accelerating reporting tasks, including collection, validation and submission. At the same time, organizations need solutions that can alert compliance personnel when compliance issues are found.
Surfacing such issues in near real time gives organizations the chance to address problems before they escalate into violations.
In the world where companies face a wide range of regulatory compliance obligations, it’s not enough to watch for issues; you also have to know what to do if they arise. A typical compliance monitoring plan should spell out who needs to be informed of an issue, how communication should take place, what corrective actions will be taken, who is responsible for them, and how those actions will be documented. It should also outline steps to prevent the problem from recurring.
Regulations like HIPAA, SOX and GDPR require the strict control and auditability of data access. In other words, companies must pay attention to — and document — who is allowed to access customer, partner, vendor and employee records.
This is where role-based access control (RBAC) comes into play. Built into software, RBAC operates on the principle of least privilege, meaning people who don’t need access to an internal site or file to do their jobs are blocked from opening it or are limited to read-only privileges. For example, RBAC might only allow a member of HR or payroll or an immediate supervisor to view an employee’s salary data.
If regulators come calling, they’ll expect to see you have a systematic approach for creating, storing, managing and retrieving documents that show your adherence to relevant regulations and internal policies. This includes logs of security events, training records, data access reports and version-controlled policies. The goal is to produce trustworthy, audit-ready evidence with minimal delay.
In many cases, regulatory compliance requirements do not just apply to companies themselves but extend to third parties, vendors and partners. Regulators often expect companies to set compliance rules for their supply chain and service providers.
Regulations like GDPR require companies to prioritize vendors that are able to demonstrate “sufficient guarantees” of compliance (vendor obligations must be represented in binding contracts). The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and its successor, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), similarly require businesses to contractually obligate service providers and contractors to protect personal information and limit its use. A company can be held liable if vendors fail to meet these obligatory standards.
While regulatory frameworks often share standard requirements, the way companies meet them varies widely depending on their industry. Factors like the type of data they handle, the risks they face and the regulators overseeing them influence their approach.
Here are a few examples of how different sectors put compliance into practice:
Banks and insurers are under constant regulatory pressure to monitor financial disclosures, audit trails and cybersecurity risks. That often means enforcing real-time transaction monitoring and strict access controls and maintaining detailed logs to detect fraudulent activity and prove accountability.
Hospitals and medical professionals adhere to data protection and privacy rules, such as HIPAA, a regulation that aims to protect the confidentiality and security of patient records. To cope, they often encrypt medical records, control who can access them and document every interaction involving sensitive and private data.
Merchants must contend with standards like PCI DSS to protect cardholder data. That often involves monitoring payment systems for unauthorized access, segmenting networks that handle credit card information and regularly testing security controls.
Cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors must demonstrate system security, availability and confidentiality controls to adhere to industry-specific frameworks and standards. They typically do this through third-party audits and certifications where their products are tested against industry-standard criteria.
Companies operating internationally must understand the laws and regulations governing each country or region in which they operate. It’s a lot to track. Successful companies manage the complexity with centralized compliance programs, cross-border data transfer safeguards and region-specific reporting.
Effective compliance tracking can be a chore, but when done well, it offers numerous business benefits. Here are some of the most common ones.
Effective compliance monitoring enables organizations to identify violations promptly and address them before regulators act. Monitoring can help companies avoid or limit penalties that sometimes amount to millions or billions of dollars.
Forcing organizations to run a tighter ship often yields numerous adjacent benefits. For example, food manufacturers that monitor raw materials, production and finished goods for safety violations may also reduce spoilage and waste. Tech companies that comply with sustainability rules might uncover inefficiencies in water and power use, which can drain profits. And delivery businesses that track emissions and vehicle performance to meet regulations often discover ways to optimize routes, lower fuel costs and enhance fleet reliability.
Regulations like GDPR that govern how organizations collect, store, use and delete personal data also provide broader data management and security benefits. Monitoring for compliance helps organizations uncover vulnerabilities before they lead to breaches and costly downtime. By continuously tracking information through its lifecycle, companies also reduce duplicates, errors and inconsistencies that slow analytics, disrupt workflows and slow decision-making.
Strong compliance monitoring sends a clear message: Your company is a straight shooter. Customers, employees, investors and regulators recognize you hold yourself accountable. Transparency rules may require tough disclosures, but they also provide an opportunity to demonstrate that your company is willing to change when necessary, as indicated by monitoring. Being honest and flexible in this way builds trust, deepens stakeholder loyalty and enhances brand reputation.
Compliance monitoring makes growth less chaotic. With automated checks and repeatable processes, a company can expand into new markets, absorb acquisitions and hire quickly without worrying about inconsistent policies or messy data.
Implementing a strong compliance monitoring system can have its challenges. Here are a few:
Effective compliance monitoring typically requires skilled personnel, automated technology, financial investment and external support. Many organizations struggle to balance these demands. When resources are tight, the key is to strategically identify constraints, focus on the most pressing regulatory requirements and set realistic timelines for addressing them. Ultimately, success depends on having a program that aligns compliance priorities with available resources.
Staying on top of the shifting regulatory landscape is challenging for most organizations. Rules vary across industries and regions, and frequent changes in the regulatory landscape make it challenging to stay current with all developments. Companies typically address this problem by deploying compliance solutions that help track changes and alert compliance personnel to them.
As companies grow, especially through acquisitions, they often inherit a patchwork of technologies that do not communicate well. This makes it difficult to run a unified compliance monitoring program across the business. Addressing the challenge typically requires integrating data from multiple systems such as compliance platforms, analytics tools, reporting software and data warehouses into a single connected view.
Limited visibility into far-flung operations like satellite offices increases the risk of policy violations, shadow IT and security gaps that can lead to compliance failures. Solutions include centralized compliance platforms, endpoint monitoring, secure access controls and standardized reporting to maintain consistent oversight, regardless of where the business operates.
Even with a regulatory leader in place, confusion can arise when clear roles, escalation paths and accountability structures are lacking. Executive sponsorship helps set the tone from the top, while regular training and communication make sure everyone knows their part. Compliance may have point leaders, but keeping the company on task is a team sport.
When an organization sets up cloud services or business platforms incorrectly, compliance monitoring can fail to identify the issue. Gaps, such as excessive user access or unencrypted data, can be challenging to spot and may go unnoticed until an audit. Automated scans, policy-as-code and frameworks like CIS Benchmarks can help catch these errors earlier and support more effective monitoring.
The most effective compliance monitoring programs start with a clear plan that defines risks, sets policies and procedures, and then lays out how to put them into practice. From there, some of the most effective tactics include:
Automation lightens the compliance load by monitoring systems in real time, automating repetitive tasks and keeping processes on track, allowing employees to focus on higher-value work.
Audits are a core part of any effective compliance monitoring program, but not all are alike. Many organizations conduct their own compliance audits to assess risk. These can be useful, but they are often less comprehensive because compliance officers and team members have other priorities competing for their time. For deeper evaluations, companies sometimes hire outside specialists to conduct comprehensive audits. These reviews not only cover more ground, but reviewers also view them as more credible since independent third parties produce them.
Compliance monitoring is most effective when it’s closely aligned to a company’s risk management program. Monitoring flags network and software vulnerabilities while risk management determines which ones merit the most attention. When linked, compliance stops being a checklist exercise and, instead, becomes a programmatic way to reduce risk.
No individual can be an island when it comes to compliance monitoring. An effective plan should identify key stakeholders, including the C-suite, compliance and legal. It should spell out how and when they will communicate and define how they will be mobilized in emergencies such as breaches, outages, surprise audits or looming regulatory penalties.
The plan should outline how an organization will train and test employees on the regulations that affect the company. Regular training ensures everyone understands their role within the broader compliance framework. It should reach from the most senior leader to the most junior employee to build a culture of compliance across the organization.
The plan should also align KPIs with business objectives, since monitoring is as much about driving financial and operational improvement as it is about compliance. Linking metrics to outcomes, such as reducing downtime, protecting customer data and accelerating market entry demonstrates how monitoring strengthens the business rather than just appeasing regulators.
Finally, the plan should prioritize solutions that provide a single dashboard where authorized stakeholders can track compliance in real time. Centralized visibility makes it easier to spot trends, flag risks and measure progress against regulatory responsibilities. It also gives executives the insight they need to make smarter decisions about the direction of the business and its operations.
Compliance monitoring is like a canary in a coal mine. It serves as an early warning system for potential regulatory issues while revealing opportunities to streamline operations, cut costs and free up resources for more meaningful projects. Implementing strong compliance monitoring programs presents numerous challenges. But with automated technology, transparent processes and a culture of accountability tied to strategic planning and solid KPIs, it can evolve from a troublesome impediment into a powerful business enabler.
Compliance monitoring solutions span multiple categories. Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) platforms help track regulatory changes and automate audits. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools identify anomalies by analyzing data from multiple systems. Identity and Access Management (IAM) platforms manage user identities and their access to resources, while RBAC features process permissions based on predefined roles. Data governance tools, meanwhile, strengthen oversight with encryption, masking and metadata-driven policies. Increasingly, these capabilities are found in centralized trust centers or platforms that incorporate compliance checks, align with industry standards and provide executives with real-time visibility into risks and remediation.
Compliance monitoring generally boils down to three basic techniques: regular audits, automated monitoring systems and self-assessments. Regular or scheduled audits are necessary to independently evaluate compliance with internal policies and external regulations. Automated monitoring systems are technology tools that continuously track activities, flag anomalies and enforce compliance rules in real time – with minimal human involvement. Self-assessments are internal evaluations where employees or departments review their adherence to compliance requirements to identify gaps early. These assessments can be handled by a company’s staff, a third-party service provider or both.
Every organization is different and so are its compliance needs. Ultimately, the way you monitor compliance will be determined by your business priorities, the markets in which you operate (and the regulations affecting those regions) and the human and technological resources you’re able to commit toward compliance.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
Stay up to date on Snowflake’s latest products, expert insights and resources—right in your inbox!
