SOX compliance software solutions are very important for every company that is legally required to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. They combine documents and content management, workflow, and monitoring in order to help map out the process of complying with each SOX control laid out by this legislation. Paul Hamerman, a Forrester researcher, recently conducted a study ranking nine different vendors based on market share as well as quality; those ranked at number one were found to have strengths while also acknowledging weaknesses that prevented them from achieving first place overall.
- ERP vendors can sometimes be a huge roadblock when it comes to compliance unless you are using the same software that they offer. In many cases, their products won’t integrate well with your system and will not help in complying with regulations.
- IBM and Stellent, two integration and content management vendors, do a good job of providing IT with technical solutions to map processes but without depth, they can’t hold up against the rigorous scrutiny that’s required for an audit.
- As an independent entity focused on providing government compliance software for small businesses worldwide, Sarbanes-Oxley offers products “pure-plays” such as OpenPages which provides data visualization tools designed with collaboration in mind. Paisley Consulting, Certus, and Handysoft also specialize in integrations between real estate management systems by offering cloud applications that automate large portions of these tasks so you don’t need hours upon hours each week managing your own records any longer.
Technology can help automate the smallest of aspects of SOX compliance for IT professionals and CIOs. One way to make this process easier is by investing in SOX compliance software tools that manage company-wide changes, integrates with other aspects such as segregation of duty requirements or change management. IDC Research Director Melissa Webster says several vendors can now produce products that can be customized to ensure Sarbanes-Oxley compliance on a per-project basis at an affordable price point, making it important not to overlook any individual control when developing a business strategy.
The investment that many businesses may want to take into account are automated controls, like segregating duties or managing applications across different departments. These days, countless people are looking for a simple and single application that can manage their audits and automate changes. Sarbane Oxley software solutions to do this specifically have been developed because it is such an important task, however, most applications cannot perform all functions well enough. The bottom line is that CIOs may be searching for years before finding just the right one, but when they do, it will be well worth it.
