Jan 2, 2025
Managing Multiple Compliance Frameworks Efficiently
As businesses grow and navigate regulated industries, managing multiple compliance frameworks becomes essential. Each framework introduces unique requirements, often leading to overlapping efforts and added complexity.
By harmonizing compliance processes, organizations can reduce redundancies, streamline efforts, and enhance agility. This article examines the challenges of managing multiple frameworks and offers strategies to ensure compliance while supporting scalable growth.
What are Frameworks?
Frameworks serve as blueprints for aligning governance, risk management, and compliance strategies with organizational goals and industry standards. They help develop and implement controls that mitigate vulnerabilities while ensuring consistency across departments. Frameworks also enhance accountability by clarifying roles and responsibilities, making it easier for teams to maintain compliance and address risks.
Organizations rely on specific frameworks tailored to their industry or operational needs, and often they must comply with multiple frameworks simultaneously. Examples include ISO 27001 for information security management, NIST CSF for cybersecurity risks, GDPR for data privacy, PCI DSS for payment security, and ISO 9001 for quality management. Each framework provides a foundation for aligning processes, implementing controls, and fostering organizational accountability.
How do Framework Requirements Overlap?
For organizations operating in complex environments, managing multiple frameworks simultaneously is often necessary. Requirements often overlap because many standards and regulations share similar goals but satisfy different regulatory requirements, such as ensuring data security, mitigating risks, and protecting data privacy.
Examples of Overlapping Requirements Across Frameworks
Data Protection and Encryption
Many frameworks require implementing encryption to protect sensitive data at rest and in transit. For example, GDPR and HIPAA emphasize encryption to safeguard personal data—whether personal health information (PHI) under HIPAA or general personal data under GDPR. Similarly, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, and PCI-DSS all mandate encryption to ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive information. Managing each requirement separately can lead to redundancies.
Access Control and Identity Management
Access control is another common area of overlap among frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, and HIPAA. Each emphasizes the need for strict access policies to ensure that only authorized individuals can access sensitive information. SOC 2 and ISO 27001 both call for robust access control mechanisms, while HIPAA specifies role-based access controls for PHI. Without a unified approach, organizations may create separate access control policies for each framework, increasing complexity and resource use.
Incident Response and Breach Notification
Incident response planning and breach notification are shared requirements in GDPR, HIPAA, NIST CSF, and ISO 27001. Each framework mandates specific protocols, such as GDPR's 72-hour breach notification rule and HIPAA's 60-day notification timeline for PHI breaches. While ISO 27001 and NIST require structured incident response procedures, the underlying processes often overlap. Developing separate teams, processes, or notifications for each framework isn't an effective use of resources.
Risk Management and Assessment
ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2, and HIPAA frameworks require organizations to conduct regular risk assessments to identify, evaluate, and mitigate potential threats. ISO 27001 provides a comprehensive risk assessment methodology, while NIST CSF outlines a risk management framework, and HIPAA mandates risk analysis to protect health information. Performing individual assessments for each framework can duplicate efforts, despite the risks and threats being addressed often aligning.
Auditing and Documentation
Maintaining audit trails, documentation, and performing regular reviews are essential requirements across frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and PCI-DSS. GDPR requires organizations to demonstrate accountability, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 mandate comprehensive documentation for audits, and PCI-DSS demands regular reporting to ensure payment data security. Despite shared goals, separate audit processes for each result in additional workloads, even when the same evidence could satisfy multiple requirements.
What are the Challenges of Managing Multiple Compliance Frameworks?
Frameworks address different aspects of GRC but overlapping requirements can create organizational challenges. This overlap can lead to duplicative efforts when organizations manage these requirements separately for each framework.
Here are the key challenges organizations face when managing multiple frameworks:
How to Better Manage Multi-Framework Compliance
To overcome the challenges of managing multiple compliance frameworks, organizations need to identify overlapping areas and streamline their compliance efforts through integrated processes and tools. Having a structured approach in place will help in reducing redundancy and ensuring consistent adherence to multiple frameworks simultaneously.
Managing multiple compliance frameworks requires a strategic approach that combines technology, process optimization, and employee engagement. By mapping overlapping requirements, adopting a common control framework, and leveraging GRC tools, organizations can reduce complexity, enhance efficiency, and maintain a strong compliance posture across diverse frameworks. This proactive approach not only ensures adherence to regulations but also builds a solid foundation for sustainable growth.
Steps to Better Manage Multiple Framework Requirements
1. Identify Relevant Frameworks
Determine which compliance frameworks are applicable to your organization based on industry, geography, operational requirements, and customer base. From here, you can identify what controls are needed so your organization can use common controls and build a scalable system for GRC efforts.
2. Implement Common Controls Across Frameworks
Identify and implement common controls, this ensures that the one control satisfies multiple framework requirements, rather than managing each of them individually. Our article on the GRC data model and common controls explains this more in-depth. This process offers significant value to organizations that need to comply with more than one framework by simplifying compliance management, reducing duplication of effort, and improving resource allocation.
3. Leverage Tools for Centralized Management
Leveraging GRC tools to automate control testing, evidence collection, and monitoring, reduces manual efforts and minimizes human errors. With a dedicated GRC tool you will also be able to assign tasks to key stakeholders to enhance communication across departments and better allocate resources. GRC tools also centralize documentation for audits and reviews, ensuring reports are readily available for audits and reviews. This also helps to establish standardized procedures that meet the requirements of multiple frameworks without manually managing separate processes within your GRC program.
4. Monitor and Update Framework Requirements
Industry regulations and standards continuously evolve with newer versions of existing frameworks, as well as emerging standards. Monitoring these updates is necessary for organizations to stay on top of changes so they can remain compliant. This includes regularly reviewing and updating internal policies and controls.
What are the Benefits of Effectively Managing Multiple Frameworks?
Effectively managing multiple compliance frameworks isn't just about meeting regulatory requirements; it’s a strategic advantage for any organization. Streamlining compliance processes while adhering to multiple frameworks allows organizations to:
Increase Efficiency: When frameworks are managed effectively, overlapping requirements can be consolidated, which reduces manual efforts and frees up organizational resources allowing teams to focus on the work that matters most.
Improve Risk Management: Consolidating compliance efforts provides organizations with a more comprehensive understanding of their risk posture. By utilizing common controls, companies can more easily identify common vulnerabilities and better mitigate potential threats.
Save Costs: Organizations with streamlined compliance efforts can reduce the costs associated with managing multiple, separate framework requirements, audits, and controls individually. Taking a centralized approach
Enhance Communication and Collaboration: Centralizing framework requirements increases communication across departments and helps prevent silos. It also increases collaboration as roles and responsibilities can be easily assigned, ensuring everyone is informed of the work that needs to be completed.
Increase Scalability: Organizations with comprehensive GRC programs are better positioned to scale their operations and potentially enter new markets. Having a strong foundation allows organizations to continue operations in the wake of unforeseen events.
By leveraging tools, aligning processes, and fostering collaboration, businesses can turn the challenge of multiple frameworks into an opportunity for operational excellence and trust-building.
How can GRC Tools Help with Managing Multiple Frameworks?
Managing hundreds or even thousands of overlapping and confusing requirements is nearly impossible without modern GRC solutions that organize, catalog, and map relationships effectively.
StandardFusion is an example of a holistic GRC platform that effectively supports multi-framework compliance management. It offers features such as a dashboard for managing controls across frameworks, automated control testing to reduce manual work, and real-time reporting to inform stakeholders of compliance progress and gaps. Additionally, its customizable control mapping allows organizations to align shared controls across different frameworks, ensuring efficient use of resources.
Ready to streamline your compliance program? Explore how StandardFusion can help you manage multiple compliance frameworks on one centralized platform.
Request a demo today to discover how we can streamline your GRC journey.
Key Takeaways
For organizations aiming to optimize compliance while managing multiple frameworks simultaneously should:
Simplify Compliance with Common Controls: Identifying and implementing shared controls across multiple frameworks reduces redundancies, streamlines processes, and ensures consistent adherence to requirements.
Leverage GRC Tools for Efficiency: Centralized platforms and automation simplify compliance management, reduce manual efforts, and enhance communication and collaboration across departments.
Prioritize Proactive Risk Management: Consolidating frameworks enables organizations to better understand their risk posture, address vulnerabilities effectively, and ensure robust incident response and risk mitigation.
Stay Agile: Regularly monitor and update internal policies to align with changing regulations, maintaining compliance while fostering scalability and operational flexibility.
Transform Compliance and Enable Growth: By effectively managing overlapping frameworks, businesses can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and build a strong foundation for sustainable growth and market expansion.
Taking a strategic approach that combines technology and process optimization when managing multiple compliance frameworks will allow organizations to reduce redundancies, streamline efforts, improve communication, and enhance agility.
