Experts Cite Growing Popularity of Integrated Platforms

October 14th, 2008

For quite a while now, I’ve been advocating that companies move to a unified software platform to simplify EHS risk and compliance, centralize data into a unified repository and manage data enterprise wide.

Last week, I received a briefing about the capital markets from a firm in our space that specializes in M&As and got a clearer picture of how they view compliance software. The presentation traced the history of compliance initiatives back to pre-SOX days (when we started ESS). It showed the hockey stick growth of compliance as a tactical matter, characterized by information silos, duplicate entities and limited compliance visibility. It shows that compliance has now emerged as a strategic imperative in the enterprise. Industry analysts like AMR have long ago embraced the concept. Now it’s gaining acceptance among other compliance software companies.

The presentation goes on to say that the compliance space is growing 2-4 times faster than any other in software and “no other software application category is growing as quickly. The next generation of compliance software will transform ‘converging’ point solutions to fully integrated compliance platforms, which will sustain and accelerate the rate of growth and demand in the coming years.”

AMR Senior Research Analyst Simon Jacobson, the keynote speaker at ESS EXPO.08, recommended that EHS data should be consolidated in a common database that efficiently collects information, ties it together and communicates it throughout the enterprise. Dow Chemical successfully leveraged that strategy to save more than $2 million and enabled all of the company’s U.S. facilities to use a common reporting process.

Ultimately, this affirms that growth in our space will occur not only because compliance is a strategic objective of nearly every company. It will happen because executives worldwide have discovered that compliance helps companies lower costs and reduce operational risk.

Tags: compliance ehs mergers and acquisitions reduce operational risk software platform unified software

Entry Filed under: Sustainability, Corporate Responsibility, Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC)