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Part 5 - Best Practice Guide to Managing Compliance of New Financial Promotion Materials
- Dave Moore
- May 27
- 4 min read
This Guide is part of our Best Practice Guide to Managing Compliance of New Financial Promotion Materials.
If you have not already done so, we recommend that you first read the Introduction Section of this Guide. That explains the purpose of the Guide covers and how to use it.
Purpose of the Storage Activity
The business purpose of the Storage activity is to … store assets and content which have been created and approved in a way that makes it easy to:
Find / retrieve the assets / content
View the assets / content
Manage the assets / content
Reuse the assets / content
Distribute the assets / content
Compliance are often responsible for this activity (where it is done immediately after content has been approved). However, in some organisations, the content creators (Marketing) will have the responsibility for storing / saving the approved version of the content.
Compliance Related Objectives
The main content compliance related objectives for this activity are:
Ensure that newly created and approved assets / content are saved with:
Complete and accurate meta data
Accurate expiry dates
Ensure that any assets / content that are past their expiry date, cannot be published / distributed
Provide a fast and easy way (during the Planning stage and the Creation stage) to find and retrieve compliance approved assets or content that could be reused
Best Practice – Key Elements and Potential Solutions
This section lists the key elements of best practice for this activity and shows for each element:
Which level of best practice they are part of – Standard or Advanced
The solutions that are likely to enable the best practice element to be achieved. (More information about these solutions, can be found in this guide - 7 Solutions That Help Achieve Best Practice)
No. 1 - Central Content Management
For there to be one central content management system (physical or logical) that is used for all assets / content
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
No. 2 - Taxonomy
For there to be a standardised best practice taxonomy that is used for all assets / content
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
Operating Model
No. 3 - Applying the Taxonomy
For most or all of the taxonomy data to be automatically applied to the asset / content when it is saved
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Work Management System
Digital Asset Management System
No. 4 - Compliance Related Meta Data
For each asset / content item to hold the:
Compliance approval ID
Compliance approval date
Expiry date
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
No. 5 - Locking Expired Content
For any asset that has passed its expiry date to be automatically “locked” and not available for distribution or publication
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
No. 6 - Search Functionality
Users are provided with advanced search capabilities that they can use to find assets or content that might be suitable for reuse
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
No. 7 - Content Reuse
For the user to be automatically provided with suggestions regarding assets or content that might be suitable for reuse
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
Content Creation & Management System
No. 8 - Version Control
To have full version control functionality
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
No. 9 - Locking Content During Approval
Any content that is in the process of being reviewed is locked and not able to be edited / updated
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
Content Creation & Management System
We will be happy to email you a full version of this Guide (in PDF format)
Benefits of Achieving Best Practice
Overall, achieving content compliance best practice for the Storage activity is likely to:
Increase the likelihood of existing assets / content being reused … and therefore, reducing the overall time / effort spent on compliance related activities
Eliminate the risk of expired (i.e. non-compliant) content being used
Provide the organisation with complete and robust version control
The tables below, give a high-level view of the type and scale of benefits that can be typically realised by achieving a best practice position.
Note. The scale of benefits to be achieved, will depend on:
How far the current way of working is from the best practice way of working
Which level of best practice is achieved – Standard or Advanced
Standard Level
Advanced Level
Do You Have Best Practice?
The following are common indicators that best practice is NOT in place:
Assets and content are stored in multiple separate systems
There is no standard taxonomy
It is difficult / time consuming to find existing assets / content that might be suitable for reuse
It is possible to access / use assets or content that has passed its expiry date
There is no standardised process / practice for managing versions
If your organisation has any of the above, then it is likely that you are not operating to best practice.
We can help you to:
Define what best practice is appropriate for your organisation
Identify and quantify the benefits that will be realised by achieving best practice
Identify the solution(s) that will enable you to achieve that best practice
Build the business case for any investment that is needed
If you would like to find out more about how we can help ...
Other Activities
Click on the buttons below to view our best practice guides for the other activities involved in the creation of new financial promotion content.
Disclaimer
The information is this guide represents Athena's views based on our experience and also based on input that we have received from a range of different people involved in both creating and approving financial promotion material.
We welcome any thoughts or suggestions regarding:
What "best practice" is or isn't
How best to achieve "best practice"
Anything that you would like to be included in the guide
Copyright Athena Know-How Ltd 2025
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