 Editorial
By Stéphane Marouani, Compliance Program Manager – ILOG
In recent years, the heavy burden of new regulations has forced companies to escalate compliance practices into a strategic concern. But as shown by the ACORD-ILOG survey -- the subject of this issue’s cover story -- there is a strong bias for using manual, paper-based processes to address compliance. Many organizations have discovered that automated systems based on business rule management systems offer a truly effective approach for achieving full compliance with complex, ever-changing regulations. They know that these systems not only keep companies on the right side of the law, but also strengthen their bottom line across business operations.
 ACORD to insurance IT: Your gap is showing
A survey conducted by ILOG and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) has found that while insurance companies are appointing compliance officers, many are not taking advantage of IT to meet new regulations.
Conducted last December and January, the survey uncovered this IT gap in asking insurers to assess their compliance programs. The study identified the challenges insurance companies face: a reactive, instead of proactive, culture (41 percent), inflexible software technology (28 percent) and a reliance on manual processes (14 percent).
Other key findings:
- Most of the respondents (83 percent) have appointed compliance officers, but only 17 percent directly involve IT in implementing guidelines for regulatory compliance.
- A quarter of those surveyed were planning to implement enterprisewide strategies for regulatory compliance, and an equal number were planning to implement solutions for monitoring operations.
- The top two technologies that respondents were considering or using for compliance management were business process management and business rule management systems (38 percent and 21 percent, respectively).
For more on the survey, visit the ACORD and ILOG websites: www.acord.org and www.ilog.com.
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