What is Compliance Software? Key Benefits and 10 Features To Consider

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Spreadsheets are fantastic for many tasks — organizing data, performing quick calculations, and even managing simple projects. But for managing compliance, spreadsheets don't cut it. 

Apptega’s 2024 State of Continuous Compliance Report shows that about half of managed service and security providers still depend on manual spreadsheets. This method is often disorganized, hurts productivity, and can negatively impact audits. 

Compliance software is a more scalable and organized way to centralize data, automate daily tasks, and prepare for audits. In fact, the market for compliance software is growing non-stop, with a valuation of $33.1 billion dollars in 2024 that’s projected to nearly double to $75.8 billion by 2031. 

Compliance software is vital in automating and simplifying adherence to regulatory requirements, with two main groups that can greatly benefit from adopting compliance automation tools. First, there are security providers like MSSPs and security-focused MSPs. They can use compliance automation software to productize, deliver, and manage compliance for their clients, which helps them increase ROI, boost revenue, and improve client retention. The second group is in-house security teams that can also take advantage of software for managing their audits and compliance, making their jobs easier and more efficient.

This article serves as a quick guide to understand how compliance tools and software can streamline regulatory processes and enhance efficiency. We list out the benefits for both security providers and in-house teams, with 10 features to consider whenever you choose a compliance tool for your organization.

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Why Is Compliance Management Software Important? 

Compliance software is a tool that helps organizations meet regulatory requirements and industry standards. It’s important because it simplifies the compliance process, reducing the complexity and resources needed to manage it effectively. These tools generally automate tasks like monitoring, managing, and reporting on compliance activities, helping security providers assist their clients in meeting legal obligations efficiently and consistently, and supporting in-house security teams in managing their own compliance.

Compliance tools often have the power to combine various security frameworks into a single platform, allowing organizations to streamline risk assessments, policy management, and audit trails, which reduces the risk of non-compliance penalties. MSSPs and security-focused MSPs can use features like real-time monitoring, document management, and workflow automation to keep clients updated on changing regulations and maintain accurate records — something that’s also applicable for in-house security teams dealing with internal compliance.

With increasing regulations and complex requirements, compliance management and automation software is an appealing way for organizations to ease the burden. According to our State of Continuous Compliance Report, 87% of security providers are open to delivering compliance services through a compliance automation platform. However, just under half of them (48%) are currently doing so. 

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The Challenges of Compliance for Security Providers and In-House Teams 

A big reason many providers shy away from offering compliance services is that the work is often manual, highly specialized, and eats up a ton of resources. According to the findings of our report:

• 3 out of 4 security providers view compliance as a high-growth business area. 
• But only 50% of them actually offer managed compliance as a service.
• A whopping 85% face significant challenges managing customer compliance.

These challenges mainly come down to not having the right tools and tech, and relying on one-off gap or risk assessments that only provide short-term fixes. This outdated approach leaves providers constantly playing catch-up in a game where the rules are always changing.

Fortunately, compliance management software can help providers and in-house teams greatly overcome compliance-related challenges. Let’s explore how. 

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The Benefits of Using Software for Compliance Management

The great news for managed service and security providers is that they can use compliance-specific software to automate most parts of the compliance journey, helping them move faster and provide greater value to their customers. 

An all-in-one compliance platform makes it easy to conceptualize and deliver bundled compliance products and services to increase annual recurring revenue (ARR), margins, and client retention. It also makes it easier to help clients align with frameworks and manage compliance programs. 

However, while providers are interested in compliance as a service offerings, few are capitalizing on the opportunity to provide a formal compliance offering:

• Beyond managing compliance with regulatory standards or in the lead-up to audits, compliance offerings can also improve the value of their security services, even if they aren't formally targeting compliance outcomes.
• Aligning to security best practices frameworks enables them to create a baseline for security posture management, helping them measure the impact of their security services. 
• Most security providers are already offering services that satisfy compliance framework controls in some way, so they're missing a chance to capitalize on that and improve their value proposition. 
• Compliance software serves as a wrapper for bringing security and compliance services together, improving value, margins, and revenue.

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Key benefits of compliance software for security providers:

• Higher recurring revenue through ongoing compliance services and product delivery
• Better margins by increasing consumption of security services and helping clients manage compliance in a way that's less expensive than they could do on their own
• Higher retention rates through ongoing services and greater value for clients
• Greater differentiation to stand out from competitors
• Validation of cybersecurity services and an unbiased way to show value and ROI through alignment with security best practices (i.e., following best practice compliance frameworks means you're implementing controls that improve your overall security posture).

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Key benefits of compliance software for in-house security professionals:

• Streamline processes through automation
• Reduce risk
• Improve transparency with reporting and dashboards
• Enhance efficiency with automation and data integration
• Strengthen legal standing‍
• Greater ROI

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10 Key Features of Compliance Software [2024 Edition]

Without further ado, let’s get straight to the 10 most important features you should look for in a compliance management solution:

1. Automated Gap & Risk Assessments — Compliance software should offer a way to quickly evaluate your compliance or security posture with streamlined gap assessments. It should also enable you to identify risks and validate cybersecurity compliance controls with framework-based questionnaires. Look for a compliance tool that offers a built-in compliance assessment manager that speeds processes with pre-built templates and helps you create centralized reports with AI-driven recommendations and automated evidence collection. 
2. End-to-End Risk Management — Risks can be better categorized, ranked by severity, and remediated with software. We suggest choosing a tool that allows you to instantly design a remediation and risk management program. With this feature, MSSPs and other security providers can manage separate programs, accounts, or clients in one place — pulling everything together with real-time visibility into how each is performing. 
3. Real-Time Reporting — We suggest opting for a tool that offers compliance reporting capabilities, delivering real-time visibility into cybersecurity and compliance data across key stakeholders. Ultimately, reporting is how clients and users will prove that what they're doing is having an impact. And it certainly makes it easier for providers and in-house security teams to show stakeholders, auditors, and other parties that they are taking proper steps.
4. Workflow and API Integrations — If you're a service provider, integrating with your customers' tech stacks will enhance your offerings and eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth communication. Plus, where else will the evidence collection and automation magic happen? That's why we strongly recommend choosing a compliance management solution that integrates with your technology stack to deliver a fully automated cybersecurity and compliance program. You should be able to connect application-specific integrations or build on an open API to automate evidence collection, task generation, user management, reporting, and more.
5. Audit Management Capabilities — A compliance tool can’t be complete if it doesn’t help complete audits fast and affordably. We recommend finding one that offers audit management and audit preparation features. These will allow your organization to centralize the collection and storage of all compliance and audit data, share evidence with stakeholders, and validate security controls when it matters the most (yep, during audits). 
6. Automated Framework Mapping — If you’re a provider or security professional managing multiple frameworks, this is how you can avoid duplicating efforts and instead focus on doubling your ROI. A tool that offers framework crosswalking can help consolidate controls and easily map them to multiple frameworks such as ISO 27001, CMMC 2.0, and many others. 
7. Vendor Risk Management — You simply can’t ignore assessing and mitigating risks from third-party vendors. If your vendors get breached or compromised, you could be breached or compromised too! Your organization should have zero compliance blind spots, especially when it comes to third-party vendor risk management. We suggest choosing a tool that lets you automate key vendor risk assessment processes, such as building (and tailoring) questionnaires for specific vendor types, receiving and storing vendor responses, and even the evaluation process. 
8. Training Integrations and Collaboration  — Your preferred compliance software should have compliance training integrations to easily track user security awareness and compliance training, providing updated compliance scoring and faster audit reporting. The software should also centralize all your information, making it easy to manage tasks and communicate with auditors and key team members. It should especially enhance team collaboration by allowing you to assign specific sections to the most relevant subject-matter experts.
9. Customization and Flexibility - A big differentiator for security providers is being able to cater their services to meet the specific client needs. A best-in-class tool should enable you to create custom compliance programs to address unique regulatory requirements or industry standards, as well as customizable reporting tools that highlight the most relevant information for each client. And if you’re looking for the cherry on top of the cake, you should choose a platform that gives you custom pricing models and white-labeling options. This enables security providers to offer packages that fit different budgets and present the tool as their own product, reinforcing brand identity and client trust. 

Technical and Go-To-Market Support — As a final recommendation, consider choosing a platform that provides support for creating continuous compliance offerings tailored to partner services, sales and marketing support, customized training, a partner community, and more.

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Final Considerations for Choosing Compliance Software

Compliance software is an instrumental tool for security providers looking to productize, deliver, and manage compliance for their clients to capture long-term, revenue-generating opportunities. It’s also a great way for in-house security professionals to help their businesses stay compliant and competitive. 

By leveraging the powerful features of the right compliance management software, both security providers and in-house teams can streamline their compliance processes, reduce risk, and maintain transparency. 

Are you interested in exploring a compliance platform to automate the process of building and running end-to-end compliance programs? Contact Apptega today to automate assessments, framework compliance, risk management, and more.