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Helping Principal Firms Manage Compliance of New Content (Pre-publication)

Compliance

Legal

Header image showing the different aspects that compliance officers need to deal with

Reducing content compliance workload

A compliance Officer under pressure trying to decide whether some content is compliant or not

We understand that managing compliance of new content that ARs and affiliates have created, often puts a lot of pressure on Compliance and Legal teams

Principal firms are legally bound to ensure that their appointed representatives (ARs) or affiliates comply with many different regulations.

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This includes making sure that all new product, marketing and sales materials are fully compliant before they are published or used by their ARs or affiliates.

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Therefore, a principal firm's Compliance or Legal teams have a very important role. However, doing their job is often very challenging because:

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  • A lot of the new content that is submitted for approval is far from compliant​

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  • It is often not clear what the intended use of the content is … and therefore, impossible to determine what requirements apply

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  • Of the sheer amount of time needed to check all of the different compliance requirements ... especially with long form content and long videos

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  • There is pressure from the ARs and affiliates to be able to approve more content more quickly

And we know that content approvers feel that:

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  • They waste a lot of time ... because of the high % of content sent to them which is not compliant and has to be returned for re-work

  • They are not involved early enough when new content or new campaigns are being planned

The good news ... it doesn't have to be that way!

What is easily possible

Even for content that is subject to complex regulatory requirements, it is easily possible to achieve a position where:

 

  • More than 90% of new content can be approved 1st time around

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  • The time needed to check any new content can be reduced to between 5 and 10 minutes on average​

Overall Workload

40% to 70% reduction in time needed to check new content

Free up time to be spent on more valuable and more enjoyable activities.

What approvers at Principal Firms need 

Diagram showing the 7 key solutions and highlighting which ones are needed by content approvers (Compliance and Legal)
To achieve the most efficient way of managing compliance of new content, approvers need 5 of the 7 key solutions to be in place.

However, 2 of those are likely to produce the most benefits: 
 
  • No. 1 - Standardised Compliance Guidance, Rules and Wording
  • No. 6 - Compliance Checking System
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7 KEY SOLUTIONS

We have a detailed guide to each of the 7 key solutions.

Note.

  1. Several of the 7 Key Solutions provide a range of features / functionality that are not directly related to content compliance. However, achieving the most efficient way of managing content compliance, normally requires those solutions to have some content compliance features or functionality. 2 examples are a) Work Management System and b) Digital Asset Management System

The most important solution for Principal Firm approvers

A good Compliance Checking System will normally provide the biggest benefits for content approvers

A good compliance checking system will:

 

  • Identify any regulatory risks or issues in new content

  • Explain the reason for the risk or issue being flagged

  • Provide content approvers with the ability to:

    • Accept or reject:

      • Any individual risk / issue​

      • The overall content item

    • Provide feedback to the content creator

 

When considering any compliance checking system, important factors to take into account include:

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  • How easy or difficult it is to set-up and manage the checks (especially important if multiple regulations are involved)

  • What content formats are supported

  • Which types of checks the system is able to do

  • Cost (of course!)

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Effective & Efficient Compliance Management
Compliance Checking System

The right compliance checking system can help content approvers by:

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  • Significantly cutting the time needed to:

    • Check any content item

    • Provide feedback to the content creator

  • Automatically providing an audit trail and version management​

Just using a good compliance checking system will typically reduce overall content checking workload by between 30% and 60%.

We do not provide any compliance checking system but, can help you select the best one for you. If this is of interest, check out this service
Find the compliance technology (and supplier) that best meets your requirements

How we can help approvers get what they need 

How we can help, will depend on what phase you are in ...
Discovery
1
You want to understand:
 
  • What improvements are possible 
  • Which of the 7 key solutions are needed and which are the most important
  • Whether any new technology is needed
  • What additions or changes are needed to the current systems and way of working
  • What the likely costs and benefits are
If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
Description of this service
Quickly identify opportunities to significantly improve the way that content compliance is managed for content creators
Establish where you are today, where you want to be and how to make key improvements, fast!
The ideal content compliance solution for content creators in your organisation
Compare different solution options and understand which ones are affordable and which ones provide the best return
Solution & Supplier Selection
2

You have decided that you need to get some new compliance technology and you want to:

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  • Make sure that all of the content checking requirements are captured and prioritised

  • Identify and evaluate systems and suppliers likely to be able to meet the requirements

  • Make sure that right solution(s) and supplier(s) are selected

If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
The ideal content compliance solution for content creators in your organisation
Find the compliance technology (and supplier) that best meets your requirements
Pilot Implementation
3

You have selected some new compliance technology and you want to run a pilot to:

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  • Test / confirm that the system has the features and functionality as stated by the supplier(s)

  • Understand what’s involved in setting up the system

  • Assess how well the system(s) meet your requirements

  • Assess the likely benefits that will be delivered with a full rollout of the system(s)

  • Decide whether to progress to full rollout of the system(s)

  • Understand what non-system changes (such as processes or roles and responsibilities) should be made in order to maximise the efficiency improvements

If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
The ideal content compliance solution for content creators in your organisation
Make sure that you have all of the right pieces in place to create compliant content in the best possible way
Minimise the costs and maximise the success of your content compliance projects
A content specific "compliance briefing" that provides everything needed to ensure that any content or material is compliant.
Full Implementation
4

You have decided to go ahead with the full implementation of new compliance technology and you want to:

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  • Complete the full rollout / implementation of the selected solutions

  • Ensure that the required improvements and benefits are achieved

If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
Make sure that you have all of the right pieces in place to create compliant content in the best possible way
Minimise the costs and maximise the success of your content compliance projects
A content specific "compliance briefing" that provides everything needed to ensure that any content or material is compliant.
Review the impact of the changes made and identify opportunities for further improvement

Other ways that we can help Principal Firms

You might be interested in checking out the other ways in which we can help principal firms

Helping Compliance and Legal teams to identify and check content that ARs and affiliates have published to websites and social media channels.

Helping appointed representatives and affiliates to quickly and easily create content that is fully compliant and therefore, can be approved 1st time every time.

Find out more about how we help approvers

For any of the following, please contact us:

  • To get an example of an Opportunity Assessment or Health Check report

  • To find out more about any of our services

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