A modern regulatory change management program is a structured, digital approach to regulatory compliance and risk management. Merging modern digital tools and reliable strategies, regulatory change management helps companies keep pace with regulatory updates, adapt to new regulatory requirements, and reduce exposure to penalties in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
Learn how to build a modern regulatory change management system, supported by regulatory change management software, that works for you and your team.
What Is Regulatory Change Management?
Regulatory change management, or RCM, refers to the processes organizations use to identify, assess, and respond to regulatory updates that impact business operations, internal policies, and compliance obligations.
Regulatory changes like digital privacy protection requirements, tax reforms and environmental laws all have a dramatic impact on businesses. These changes tend to be deeply felt by small businesses, which lack the infrastructure to adapt quickly. Even large corporations can struggle to update compliance documentation and policies quickly enough to remain aligned with regulatory requirements.
Regulatory change management is designed to address all the challenges associated with regulatory change, including:
- Tracking regulatory developments
- Updating company policies to align with regulatory changes
- Monitoring the impact of regulatory changes
- Assessing and managing regulatory risk
In recent years, governance, risk and compliance (GRC) professionals have adopted new strategies that reflect the changes brought about by widespread digitalization and tools like artificial intelligence (AI).
How Does Technical Transformation Impact Regulatory Change Management?
Most industries today, from agriculture to financial services, rely heavily on digital tools throughout the production cycle. This transformation is likely to continue, or even accelerate, as AI gains deeper acceptance in the workplace.
Modern computing processes, like data analytics and AI, have also changed the regulatory landscape. Today, businesses need to comply with regulations on:
- Data privacy and protections, especially for residents of the EU, Brazil and certain US states
- AI governance aimed at preventing bias in sensitive areas like financial services
- Cybersecurity regulations designed to protect networks from data breaches
Modern regulatory change management programs include carefully planned measures to protect data and manage AI tools safely.
What Are the Key Elements in a Modern Regulatory Change Management Program?
An effective, modern change management system needs to incorporate the following elements.
Monitoring for Regulatory Change
Staying ahead of regulatory updates through continuous regulatory monitoring is critical.Change can come from many different directions, so GRC teams need to track state and federal laws, international standards, and industry requirements. Many businesses today are subject to multiple regulations.
Modern RCM programs use digital tools like AI and automation to quickly and continuously scan for new and updated regulatory requirements. Automated AI tools can read and understand massive legal documents at high speed. They can also produce plain-language text to update your staff about the new regulations.
Accountability
Accountability ensures that your goals are met and that performance is consistent, no matter what challenges arise. In a modern, digitized environment, accountability also extends to the oversight of AI tools and workflow automation used in compliance processes..
It’s good practice to create a structured change management governance model, setting out clear roles and defining decision-making responsibilities at every stage of regulatory change management. This structure should include clear instructions for working with AI and automated tools, implementing plenty of checks to prevent AI bias or error.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement refers to the ongoing effort to make compliance workflows more efficient and effective, moving away from a reactive approach to regulatory change and towards a more agile, proactive approach.
AI can help with continuous improvement — the technology enables much faster change management workflows, from monitoring regulatory updates to tracking compliance data. It also drives effective strategies like predictive risk analysis. At the same time, GRC teams need to be aware of the risks in using AI tools and manage those risks by establishing a strong AI governance system.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Regulatory change impacts everyone in your organization, and that’s why it’s important to involve people from every department in RCM.
Whenever possible, bring in people from your IT, legal and finance departments to talk about the new regulations and how to implement them. This has a double benefit: It keeps people across the company informed about regulatory developments, and it invites creative ideas from as many people as possible, helping to build a culture of compliance across the enterprise.
Onspring’s compliance platform helps bring your teams together by acting as a central hub for all the relevant data and ideas. The platform gives everyone on your team access to critical regulatory intelligence and AI-driven insights about regulatory change, while enabling discussions and shared workflows among geographically remote team members.
Impact Assessments
Impact assessments evaluate how regulatory change affects the organization by comparing current practices against upcoming requirements. These assessments identify compliance gaps, assess readiness, and define the actions needed to achieve alignment.
For example, when new environmental regulations are introduced, an impact assessment helps pinpoint where existing controls fall short and maps the steps required to meet regulatory requirements.
What Challenges Do Modern Regulatory Change Management Programs Face?
These are some of the most common problems experienced by GRC professionals as they try to navigate regulatory change management.
Difficulty Keeping up With Fast-Changing Regulations
The volume and pace of regulatory updates make manual tracking and ad-hoc regulatory monitoring unsustainable. Monitoring legislation is especially challenging for lean GRC teams, who lack the personnel to track new laws. Even for large and well-staffed teams, though, the process of reading and analyzing long legal documents and performing the necessary risk assessments can be overwhelming.
Over-Reliance on Manual Processes
Manual processes are time-consuming and vulnerable to human error. If you’re still relying on spreadsheets and paper checklists, you’re probably also spending a lot of time hunting for data and reworking calculations. That’s taking up valuable hours that you could spend creating new, updated compliance policies and coming up with creative ideas to follow regulations.
Trouble Getting Teams on Board
Getting teams on board can present multiple challenges. First, employees can often be resistant to implementing new policies, especially if it involves learning new processes and skills.
Second, it can be difficult to communicate new policies to your staff, especially if you have a large organization. Even the process of drafting new guidelines is time-consuming. If you’re using manual processes for regulatory data collection, then it’s also difficult to share data and reports with your staff.
Difficulty Preparing for Audits
Audits can be devastating, especially when regulations change quickly and you’re not sure whether you’re staying on top of all your obligations. If you’re still relying on manual processes to track your regulatory compliance, the process is even more of a headache for your compliance teams. The prospect of following audit trails and collecting and organizing your compliance data can be overwhelming and full of room for error.
Integrating Digital Tools Into Regulatory Change Management
Modern regulatory change management programs make use of AI and ML tools to overcome many of the challenges in the RCM process.
AI-powered tools can continuously scan for regulatory updates, interpret new regulatory requirements, update compliance documentation, and support training initiatives. Automated workflows reduce manual effort while improving consistency, transparency, and audit readiness.
Onspring’s digital GRC platform acts as a central repository for all your compliance program workflows, so that your team is always on the same page and you are constantly driving greater efficiency.
Ready to learn more? Download our free eBook, Building a Regulatory Change Management Program.
