How Do You Manage Your Regulations?

According to The American Action Forum, the direct costs of regulations force American businesses to waste 87 million man-hours filling out regulatory paperwork. The American Action Forum is headed by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin. But, what are the costs of these new regulations?  Conveniently neither Congress nor the Administration keeps track of the costs. However, these costs can be estimated by the number of new regulations added.

In 2011, there were a total of 3,611 new regulations at an estimated cost of $10 billion. This estimate is provided by the regulatory agencies themselves.

It doesn’t take a degree in economics to understand that regulations will stagnate business. But, does the average person understand who benefits from regulations? I admit that I always look for motivation when someone does something… it’s in my nature to be curious. I don’t think that people are inherently bad. I just think that people are inherently selfish. But, being selfish is not bad in of itself. It simply is.

To be fair, I was the Environmental club President of my high school…oh my youth. So, while we all want to be considerate of the environment and we do want to manage safety it doesn’t mean that we need to have unrealistic or excessive regulations at the benefit of some.

So where does one go from here in terms of managing regulations. They aren’t going away. Your only choice is to manage them. But, with $46 billion dollars in increased costs of regulations in the first three years of the Obama Administration, what does that mean for your future and your company?

It means that you need to find the best way to stay current on the changes in your industry. The Oil and Gas industry alone has several governing standards and regulation agencies. Does your current solution update and streamline into real time compliance activities that are mapped through your organization with training and reporting?

If your current regulatory compliance software doesn’t auto-update, you may not be managing your regulations, they might be managing you. It’s a matter of being proactive versus reactive. To learn more, about managing regulations for O&G, checkout our Oil and Gas GRC Software or our advisory services now.

 

*The author’s views and opinions are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views and opinions of 360factors.