The risk- and capital-intensive oil & gas, mining industry has long been subject to oversight, regulation, and control. There are health, safety, environmental and security aspects (HSES) of the upstream and manufacturing operations, as well as internal and external financial, corporate governance, and information-related security and compliance aspects, that are required in most of the companies. It is an increasingly regulated world where the oil & gas, mining businesses face a myriad of frequently changing, local, state, national and international compliance and control challenges. Information technology (IT) helps address many of these challenges, but new IT models can also result in new compliance concerns. For example, remotely hosted software and services can provide fast, reliable access to data and solutions needed for joint-venture, multi-company, distributed operations. But many governments require that proprietary data not leave the country: so what happens if that data is hosted remotely? And what about the security, privacy and intellectual property (IP) protection for all stakeholders who collaborate in these new environments? Additionally, companies are continually concerned with safe operations and sustainability for energy efficiency, carbon management, and other environmental issues; legal records retention and disclosure in support of regulatory incidents or mergers and acquisitions; and how to meet these many requirements with exponential data growth and fewer, less experienced workers.
Pervasive Compliance
Solutions to meet these challenges must make compliance pervasive in employees’ everyday activities, enabling them to collect, measure and monitor enterprise-wide risk exposure and compliance. Wherever possible, standards and security must be built right into foundation technologies. Solutions must maximize existing investments in technology and skills and simplify last-mile risk management and controls in the processes and tools workers use every day. Technology can enable companies to adapt to the ever-changing regulatory environment with a flexible, future-state governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) technology blueprint.
Help from Microsoft and Partners
Microsoft technology serves as a GRC foundation, almost a platform. Our approach is based on four pillars: 1) productivity, 2) efficiency, 3) automation and 4) third-party, best-of-breed compliance solutions from our ecosystem of industry partners, which together deliver an integrated, enterprise-wide compliance and risk management environment. Partner solutions leverage core Microsoft technologies such as enterprise content management, business intelligence, unified communication, and collaboration, as well as security- and compliance-related capabilities around users, data and IT infrastructure—solutions that address operational, HSE, and overall corporate GRC requirements. New cloud services—Microsoft’s remote business platform, a crucial component of our broader software and services offering—delivers the innovative enterprise technology that oil & gas, mining industry companies need to meet operational and businesses challenges. And Microsoft also delivers the technology and policy guidance for business, data and IT governance. For example, any Microsoft-hosted solutions include, as part of a standard service level agreement, auditing reports required to show compliance with SAS 70, a U.S.-based controls and safeguard standard required by companies that host or process customer data.
Everyday Controls
Regulatory compliance is every employee’s business and responsibility, from executives and management, to business and technical professionals, to first-line workers. Labor-intensive, error-prone manual processes or the consequences of mistakes and non-compliance are unacceptable. Solutions from Microsoft and its partners— hosted in the cloud, on premise, or a combination of both—make compliance pervasive in and consistent across employees’ everyday activities, thereby eliminating manual process and streamlining operations, which helps to ensure compliance at reduced costs. The ability to quickly and easily deploy or update solutions delivers the agility businesses need to meet demands of an increasingly stringent and dynamic regulatory environment—making compliance and control easier for everyone.
Key Benefits:
Partner applications integrated into standard role-based workflows with Microsoft technologies create the infrastructure, environment and culture for enterprise-wide compliance and control, by helping businesses:
- Simplify regulatory report preparation and compliance
- Reduce costs through increased productivity, efficiency, and automation
- Enhance workers’ abilities to make decisions and take action
- Facilitate regulatory compliance across the enterprise.
- Improve business and operational agility with systems that can be efficiently deployed and adapted to meet changing regulations.