During Hyperproof’s 2021 IT Compliance Benchmarks Survey, we asked respondents to think about their day-to-day activities related to IT risk and compliance management and estimate how much of their time is spent on low-level administrative tasks.
Virtually all respondents (93%) spend at least 20% or more of their total time on administrative tasks. In other words, one whole work day every week, or two-and-a-half months every year, is wasted on routine administrative tasks.
A full half of all respondents spend 50% or more of their total time at work on low-level administrative tasks. This means that IT security and GRC professionals are left with little time to focus on high-value IT risk management controls designed to reduce risks.
We asked respondents to tell us what tasks they find especially tedious: The three tasks selected most often as tedious are: 1) Locating documents and other information needed for the audit (52% selected); 2) Communicating with the auditor (52% selected this), and 3) Finding information needed to meet compliance requirements (51% selected this).
One out of every five respondents are still using spreadsheets to manage their IT compliance efforts. However, compliance management software is gaining traction; 45% of respondents are using software specifically built for managing IT compliance efforts.
Joint research from Coalfire and Omdia Research in 2020 found that growing compliance obligations threaten to become unsustainable cost burdens—51% of those surveyed are spending 40% or more of their IT security budgets on compliance.
To get additional benchmarks on how organizations are managing IT risks in 2021, download Hyperproof’s 2021 IT Compliance Benchmarks Report.