One of the most important roles of any IT department is to ensure full compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and industry best-practices. These best practices may touch on everything from user privacy to basic cybersecurity.

It’s important for any business organization to include IT compliance within its day-to-day procedures, and a good starting point is simply understanding why IT compliance is so important in the first place.

Considering the Most Common Compliance Frameworks

To begin with, there are a number of compliance frameworks and standards that guide IT departments, and they all focus on different things. Here are some of the most common IT compliance frameworks.

  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) applies to healthcare organizations, and pertains to the privacy and confidentiality of patient data.
  • Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) applies to organizations that deal with credit, debit, and cash card transactions. The purpose of this framework is to protect the personal and financial information of cardholders.
  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protects the privacy of website and app users, and applies to any business that serves customers in the EU.
  • International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) applies more specifically to technologies used for defense or for military endeavors.

Obviously, some of these frameworks might be relevant to your business, and others may not be. However, these examples indicate the breadth of IT compliance concerns, and the different functions that these compliance frameworks can serve.

Is IT Compliance the Same as Cybersecurity?

While IT compliance and security overlap in many respects, it’s important to understand that they are not the same discipline; instead, they are two separate disciplines that work together to advance business objectives, including objectives for risk reduction.

More specifically, a focus on compliance helps an organization to work more efficiently, and to consider not just their own security but also privacy for their users. And a focus on security helps a company to stay vigilant regarding employee training and responses to cyber breaches.

Why Does IT Compliance Matter?

Ultimately, there are a number of reasons why IT compliance matters for businesses.

  • Revenue growth – it allows organizations to sell to clients in an industry that requires regulatory compliance.
  • A focus on IT compliance ensures that the organization is implementing best practices, which in turn means that it operates at peak efficiency.
  • Focusing on IT compliance can also significantly reduce the risk of negative business consequences, including security breaches and lost data.
  • Maintaining legal compliance also allows business organizations to avoid fines and penalties.
  • Ensuring IT compliance helps an organization to safeguard its reputation with the general public.

These are just a few of the reasons why any business organization should make an investment in maintaining robust IT compliance.

Learn More About IT Compliance in Charlotte, NC and Beyond

How are your compliance practices? If you’re ready to step things up or simply want to take inventory, reach out to the IT experts at BlueArmor. We’re proud to provide a range of IT compliance and IT security services to businesses in Charlotte, NC, and the surrounding area.