Advancing From Remediation to Transformation
As 2025 approached, many companies were on board the remediation boat and were doing all they could to make progress on the backlog of items to address (existing control and regulatory remediations) while expecting new items to arrive. Seemingly, the flow of new items has slowed in most cases with the change in the federal administration's priorities.
Many companies have continued to actively work on items in the pipeline, responding to previously issued orders/decrees/settlements or self-remediating to avoid new ones.
Many companies are taking this moment to reorganize their efforts and advance towards a more strategic direction.
For example, if the preponderance of regulatory challenges and control concerns is focused on data, rather than addressing them by simply focusing on remediating an issue, ask: What is it that we want to accomplish with our data strategically, and how can we not only address the issues but advance to a transformation around data? Yes, we need to secure the data, address any permissions or privacy concerns, have excellent data quality and lineage, and have a defensible way to destroy data past its retention requirements. We also want to take the data — a highly valuable strategic asset — and leverage great data management/governance and analytics/artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to drive revenue, better serve our customers, reduce operating costs, and mitigate risk. This change in mindset and strategy has us thinking less about remediation as a negative event, but providing the momentum or imperative for transformation change, which can be a positive event.
Many companies are accelerating their focus on newer topics, including AI and cryptocurrency, and establishing governance and controls to enable the acceleration of usage as well as mitigate future remediation risks by understanding emerging regulations and practices against planned usage.
We are confident this change of focus by the federal administration will pass, and new items will begin to flow again. Therefore, now is the time to lean in.
Regardless of your path, we offer the following suggestions and considerations as your company considers your current portfolio of remediation items and the opportunity to transform:
1. Accelerate efforts for the known: Tackle your current portfolio of items by leaning in. Set the approach and source the efforts to an internal shared service/center of excellence or trusted providers to refocus your energy on more strategic items. Look towards self-remediation of any discovered items so they do not linger.
2. Shift towards transformation and remediation: Refresh your risk assessment within your portfolio related to regulatory and controls remediation. Which items will continue to be of regulatory focus, public scrutiny, or important to you and your customers? Update your priorities and resource allocations. Look for themes across these items. Many themes/items will interact/intersect with other strategic imperatives, and you can elevate the value of working on these items by incorporating them into a more holistic strategic transformation and remediation program.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
