Managing NERC compliance has never been this simple

For nearly two decades, ComplyTec has helped Canadian enterprises protect themselves from financial and reputational risk associated with cyber-attacks and compliance failures.

More recently, by working closely within the North American utility sector, we quickly came to acknowledge its intense regulatory framework. Regulations in the utility sector are designed to avoid catastrophes such as the infamous blackout that affected millions of Canadians during the summer of 2003. Given the importance of utilities to society, it is not surprising to see the rigour that utilities must deliver in their operations on a constant basis.

The benefits of regulations are undeniable. They add an extra layer of oversight designed to help ensure electricity supply reliability. At the same time, however, regulations add a significant burden to organizations.

For a utility to manage countless regulations without blemish, thousands of people must follow internal processes in coordination while, at the same time, maintaining evidence that they have done so. Complying with regulations is both time-consuming and costly, yet essential.

Even if a utility is doing everything flawlessly, from an operational performance point of view to fiscal and environmental perspectives, both complying and not complying with the regulations can be punitive. Poor compliance management can result in inefficient use of expensive human resources for rushed audits, failed audits and its associated fines, reputation devaluation in the eyes of customers and shareholders, and employee morale issues.

Our industry research has shown that implementing Integrated Risk Management (IRM) solutions to manage compliance can be costly, difficult to maintain, and can suffer from low user adoption. The result is often a longer time to value for utilities.

At ComplyTec, we concluded that many utilities who are troubled with NERC compliance management need a quick-start turnkey solution that allows them to be up and running, with a much shorter time to value. With this design philosophy in mind, we proceeded to partner with leading NERC subject matter experts and brought to market such a solution.

The ComplyTec NERC Solution is quick to implement, cost-effective and easy to learn because it is:

• purpose built to specifically address the utility sector’s NERC requirements, with pre-loaded standards families and workflows.
• code-free and allows for customization using drag and drop tools.
• has a simple layout using familiar NERC terminology.
• delivered by skilled project managers who ensure successful change management.

Our NERC compliance solution has the added benefit of being scalable to address integrated risk management needs based on a utility’s risk roadmap since it is built on the award-winning RSA Archer IRM platform.

To understand more about our solution and its benefits for your utility, view our 2-mins video: