Responding to Regulatory Mandates by Redeploying to the Cloud

If you haven't heard about "Red Flag" requirements for financical institutions and creditors to help fight identity theft, you may want to get familiar with them.  Federal authorities, among them the FTC have combined to issue regulations that stipulate that "creditors" which includes auto dealers, mortgage brokers, utility companies and telecommunications companies just to name a few will be required to implement identity theft prevention programs by June of 2010.  No doubt this is just the beginning.  These programs must include provisions for indentification, detection, and response to patterns, practices, or specific activities known as "Red Flags" all of which are indicators of identity theft.

How many of us are aware of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and their impending changes that will no doubt impact every company?  It's apparent already that IFRS disclosures will require a great deal more detail and transparency then the present day US GAAP standards (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices).  These changes are so widesweeping that access to transaction data previously housed in the front to middle office systems will have to flow through to the back-end financial systems like never before.

And the changes that will have to be made to the financial reporting processes currently in place for most companies appear at first blush at least to be staggering.  If not properly addressed in the core systems the result will be more spreadsheets and countless adjustments that will lead to escalating costs in accounting personnel.   

As I see it, these are just 2 examples of the brave new world that lies ahead for businesses trying to keep up with increasing demand placed on their IT.   I've heard of similar regulatory mandates that in process now related to distirbutor and manufacturer supply chains  

I'm stating the obvious here, but meeting these regulatory obligations by enhancing your IT, does nothing to advance the bottom line.

A big part of the answer is to consider the redeployment of your core systems to the cloud and place the burden for these enhancements squarely on the shoulders of the service provider who will be required to make them on behalf of an entire community of users. 

Get out of the IT business as quickly as you can!

Contact us at True Cloud.. We can help!        



Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud

www.truecloud.com