A Rosy Look at Compliance

NEW YORK It’s no secret that storage companies and their affiliates see the spate of new government regulations as a boon to sales (see Insider Assesses Compliance Impact and The Real Cost of Compliance). It's nothing new to hear them put a cheery face on the necessary hassles of compliance. But in case you're still wondering why you should be grateful for new regulations, speakers at an executive briefing here today offered fresh reasons.

As much of an expensive, time-consuming headache compliance has become, the process of meeting guidelines set by Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations can benefit IT staffs in the long run, according to input from representatives of EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Unisys Corp. (NYSE: UIS), Cap Gemini, and Information Builders.

Some of the benefits of swallowing compliance castor oil include:

Leveraging processes put in place for Y2K. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates businesses spent $100 billion between 1995 and 2000 on Y2K. Experts say the technology and processes put in place with that money can help companies comply with the raft of new regulations.

“A lot of work for Y2K helped set the foundation for compliance, just like a lot of disaster recovery is the result of work done for Y2K,” says Don Montgomery, director of Business Intelligence for Unisys.