COMPLIANCE RESEARCH: Data explosion will cause compliance headache - Business - News - ZDNet Asia

Compliance is a key factor when transforming or improving business, but it does not ned to be the headache people think. Do you need to really save management approvals of small system changes made 4 years ago? Compliance rulings such as Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 are about increasing accountability in business. My suggestion is to run your business orderly, monitor your records, and track your changes. I recently ran into "save forever" that seems to me to be an unworthy expense. But saving for 3-7 years seems more reasonable. Running the business properly and honestly and accurately in the first place and you will reduce your needs for saving minute items for 20 years. As the auditors are concerned with, "does that seems reasonable"?

From March 2007: Data explosion will cause compliance headache - Business - News - ZDNet Asia: "'Adopting a comprehensive and disciplined approach to managing information and understanding its value is key to reducing the hidden--and not so hidden--costs associated with the information explosion,' the report said."

And also from ZDNetAsia back in in June, 2005:

IT departments are touched by this piece of SOX because the computer systems they oversee do such things as manage billing, accounting and financial reporting. In addition, IT operations frequently have sizable budgets and themselves are responsible for a significant chunk of a business' expenses.

But exactly what chief information officers need to do to meet the letter of the law and related regulations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been difficult to discern, AMR's Hagerty said. Interpretations of the rules changed over time, to the frustration of CIOs in 2004, he suggested. "Most IT organizations will tell you (SOX compliance) was disruptive," he said. "Section 404 is the part that caused people the heartburn."

Keep it simple, keep it reasonable, and DO plan to include the right audit, history, and financial calculations in place up front so worries of expensive law suits and huge money to fix things go by the way side.