Wednesday March 21st 2007: The Irish and UK software compliance market is growing rapidly and now exceeds the value of HR and payroll software, according to a new report by iReach which was commissioned by EMEX, the Irish owned software compliance company.

The study finds that the Irish and UK software compliance market is now worth in excess of €1 billion. The total value of the security compliance and control market reached €5.6 billion worldwide in 2006.

“The market is being driven by a need to manage a plethora of health and safety requirements now being enforced by Irish government and EU legislation,” commented Richard Wall, CEO, EMEX. He added that not only health and safety legislation but Companies Acts and Sarbanes Oxley were placing an onus on company directors to manage risk in a more integrated fashion.

“Increasingly individual officers of the company rather than the company itself can be prosecuted for failure to comply with company law and health and safety legislation. This is serving to concentrate minds from the point of view of personal as well as corporate risks involved.”

He said that this was likely to change as company officers recognised the risks and costs of failure to implement risk management and compliance systems. “Legislative obligations in the EU and Ireland are making the industry operational environment much more fraught with peril. Penalties for non compliance are not only becoming more severe but are being enforced and impacting on company officers personally.”

Sales Director of EMEX Kieran Sexton added, “It is significant that 88% of those surveyed in our study intend to implement a risk management plan of some sort in 2007. This highlights the importance that organisations are placing on mitigating corporate risk as well as company director liability. Many customers do not seem to understand that automation is the key to risk management and that paper based systems actually create overhead rather than assistance.”

The study comments, “Another reason there is such a high percentage of those implementing risk management systems is that it helps to cut back on costs such as insurance and legal fees. It also helps streamline internal and external process which can make business much more effective as it allows for resources to be realigned to innovative offerings”.