Inspiration in Compliance: Starting with 'Why'

By Scott North, Chief Risk Officer, Youi Insurance

Scott North, Chief Risk Officer, Youi Insurance

Compliance is about doing the right thing by our customers, in a world of complexity and change. It helps us build trust among the communities we operate in.

The most important role of compliance and risk professionals is to be on the front foot with information. The expectations of the organisation, and most likely your CEO, is that as the expert in risk and compliance you help your business leaders have an ear to the ground and an eye on the horizon. But unless you are superhuman, covering such a broad area with ‘one mind’ is going to be a massive challenge.

In addition, the regulatory environment is becoming increasingly more complex. The Royal Commission into Financial Services in Australia has shown the industry that in many cases, simply meeting the bare minimum standard when it comes to compliance, is not enough. We must think about the basic principles of Compliance, and in designing solutions, whether it’s through Regtech or other means, look at how to go beyond our obligations to help deliver better experiences for our customers. From compliance, to competitive advantage. So, how do we confront these challenges?

The first critical element is not to jump to the answer through a “technology tool” but rather to commence at the core of everything we do in business, and that is to start with “why”. Simon Sinek, the author of ‘Start with Why’ outlines that we need to “imagine a world in which the vast majority of us wake up inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day”.This isexactly the lens risk and compliance professionals must take to support people in understanding the complex and challenging world of compliance.

With over 700 obligations across multiple laws, legislation and industry codes, we recognised that the success of providing the business with the key information was to start with why. This is exactly the lens we are using today when it comes to the complex world of compliance obligations across our Insurance business.

Compliance is About Doing the Right Thing by our Customers, in A World of Complexity and Change

As an example, we recently highlighted this to our Executive team through three key areas; freedom to run the business; providing positive customer outcomes; and empowering our people to make the right business decisions. This was used to introduce a new tool for managing our compliance obligations. We recognised that people do not want to hear about a technology solution or tool until they understand how it will help deliver to the organisation’s purpose.

Our focus therefore in our compliance technology solutions, is to support our business in bringing the customer to the centre of everything we do. Specifically, we address the key aspects of “attention and intention”, by focussing on providing the business with visibility of our obligations, followed with the appropriate business action. We recognise that there are a significant number of upcoming legal and regulatory changes, along with the existing compliance obligation requirements, and our business leaders need us to help them navigate this complex world.

Technology assists greatly in the advancement of navigating the complex obligations through tools which include forms, workflows, registers, incident management and attestations, which are at the core of any compliance management framework. We are however, focused on ensuring that the business is constantly and proactively being engaged, using critical components like visual elements and using plain language. Removing risk and compliance jargon and working with the business using their language is critical to engagement with dashboards and summarised reporting.

However, we see the obligations tool as only one part of a much larger and more comprehensive suite of technology solutions.

Critically, we are exploring artificial intelligence and machine learning in our roadmap of technological solutions. As an example, technology which converts speech to text is being explored to provide the business with the information to make things easy to understand and monitor, and to improve customer outcomes. Further, we are exploring information management tools that empower the user to have timely access to visualisations of compliance information, and solutions to further enhance our monitoring and oversight activities across the business.

These are all evolving areas but an important part of a holistic approach to sourcing the right technology solutions for risk and compliance.

It’s a challenging and exciting time to be in risk and compliance. In a world of constant change and consumer focused ecosystems, the role of risk and compliance, and its technology solutions, is critical to the success of every organisation. Focussing on human engagement, inspiration and development, and allowing new thoughts and ideas to blossom into better customer outcomes has never been more important.

Using technology to provide visual and engaging information, the risk and compliance team must help the business navigate to deliver the right outcomes for our customers. The time has come to take compliance to a new level of purpose and inspiration.