Key Things to Consider When Choosing a Tech Solution for Risk & Compliance Teams

The ability to detect and manage risk is essential for anyone involved in regulatory affairs, compliance, procurement, or credit management. However, there are several difficulties an organisation encounters when carrying out risk-sensitive activities such as company monitoring and compliance checking. In this article, we will be looking at some of the main challenges and how they can be overcome using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Common Challenges to Identifying and Monitoring Companies & Deals Today

•     Corporate data deluge
  

  There is a huge amount of corporate data available to researchers & analysts and the amount is constantly growing. Capturing and processing this data to deliver meaningful and actionable insights can be extremely time-consuming for research teams. According to research by International Data Corporation (IDC) in 2020, a knowledge worker typically spends around 2.5 hours a day, which takes up about 30% of an 8-hour average workday, searching for information while a corporate analyst, whose time costs more than the average knowledge worker, spends even more time on such work up to five hours per day.

•     Wider variety of corporate data sources
  

  There is an ever-widening variety of data sources that analysts must consider. It is not enough to search traditional data sources like government websites, news about the target company, and easily available public structured data. According to the same report by IDC, analysts are increasingly looking at non-traditional sources, including internal structured data about companies, industries, and individuals, social media data, and news about things that affect the target company such as new technologies, market trends, and regulations.

•     Long-tailed and siloed monitoring
  

  Most organisations understand the importance of investing time and resources when it comes to pre-deal due diligence. However, there are substantial long-tail costs associated with indefinite post-deal monitoring which are often overlooked. Furthermore, information, processes, and tools are often siloed, leading to inefficient monitoring.

Leveraging AI Technology to Improve Risk Monitoring

AI can dramatically streamline almost every stage of gathering, organising, and analysing data. It helps in the following ways:

• It can automatically extract information from any text-based files
• It can contextualise and structure accumulated data
• It can eliminate limitations of siloed data and knowledge
• It allows for 24/7 monitoring without human intervention
• It accelerates data processing, allowing for faster analysis of the data and timely decision making
• It overcomes resource constraints

Given the fact that AI can process large quantities of structured and unstructured data quickly and efficiently, it can be used to overcome the challenges to risk management outlined above. By leveraging AI, professionals involved in risk management can identify potential risks in a timely manner and respond to them proactively.

How to Choose a Solution for Streamlining Monitoring and Risk Management Activities

There are now numerous AI-powered corporate intelligence solutions on the market. However, not all are the same. When looking for a solution that meets your needs, it is important to consider the following:

1. Cost (investment level, one-off, or recurring)
   Look for a solution provider that offers competitive and flexible pricing. Ideally, you should find a provider that can tailor a solution to fit your company’s specific needs and budget.
   
2. Levels of data sensitivity
   The solution provider should be able to accommodate varying degrees of data sensitivity. Consider the type of information you require and the right provider should be able to cater to it.
3. Size and digital skillsets of the team
   It is ideal for the risk & compliance team or in-house tech team to have the technical know-how to design and implement the solution. In the event that in-house teams do not have the capacity, the provider should be able to facilitate the implementation from start to finish and provide any necessary training to staff at your organisation.
   
4. Type of monitoring
   You will need to consider whether your organisation needs scheduling or 24/7 monitoring and what type of alerts or notifications are best suited to your purposes.
   
5. Internal procurement policies
   You need to be aware of your organisation’s procurement policies. Make sure that your chosen solution aligns with the procurement department’s criteria for external vendors and is not blacklisted.

Our Solution

ScoutAsia is a turnkey data monitoring solution designed to overcome the challenges outlined in this article. The platform uses AI to bring a high degree of automation to the process of aggregating, organising and sifting large amounts of data on Asia-based companies, markets, sectors, and individuals. Off-the-shelf, it monitors more than 50 high-quality sources of Asian business and financial news and information on a 24/7 basis. It is highly customisable — with no special technical expertise, users can train “Scout AI” to track specific topics or companies. Moreover, the technology can be used to monitor internal knowledge repositories, emails, websites, and more in addition to external data sources.

By automating data collection and processing, ScoutAsia frees up time for risk management teams to focus on analysing data to identify and respond to risks in a timely fashion.

If you’d like to learn more about how the platform works in practice, please contact us for more information on how we can meet your data monitoring needs.