In today's world, accurate and accessible corporate record-keeping is vitally important for good governance and compliance. This imperative has elevated the practice of entity management to a position of exceptional importance for governance and compliance professionals.
Key takeaways:
- Entity management champions drive accuracy, collaboration, and compliance by leading the adoption of centralized, technology based solutions that keep corporate records current, accessible, and secure for all stakeholders.
- The right entity management solution—paired with expert onboarding, training, and ongoing guidance—empowers champions to streamline governance processes, support transactions, and ensure long term organizational continuity.
Though rigorously accurate corporate records are a mandate, keeping everything fully up to date is often a time-consuming challenge. Given the complexity inherent in today's global business environment, decentralized entity management methods often fall short of the mark.
These limitations mean that it regularly falls upon an organization's "entity management champion" to research, identify, and deploy a workable solution that helps guarantee the accuracy and accessibility of records. By doing so, organizations can practice smart, technology-based entity information management while meeting all compliance and governance objectives.
What is an entity management champion?
An entity management champion leads the shift to a centralized system that keeps corporate records accurate, accessible, and secure across stakeholders.
Why are entity management solutions needed?
Organizations can achieve several mission-critical objectives by having the right entity management solution in place. First, such a solution fulfils the need for precision. Companies can rest assured that their data is complete, current, and easily accessible.
The right entity management solution also plays an essential role in supporting transactions. Organizations attempting to strike deals require accurate entity data to be furnished in a timely manner, and failure to accomplish this task can derail transactions.
Entity management solutions also foster departmental cross-collaboration. Given the large number of stakeholders who may need access to data — facilitating close collaboration is an important objective.
Finally, adopting the right entity management solution enables the creation of a database of record — a single resource for stakeholders to access the same data source.
Defining the entity management champion
The simplest way to define an "entity management champion" is this — someone who recognizes the need for improvement or flaws in current entity management processes, and who takes responsibility for introducing a new, streamlined, and more effective solution.
Once this determination has been made, the entity management champion often oversees every stage of the new solution's launch. This begins with the pre-sale process (including due diligence, research, and demos), getting management buy-in, and the purchase, then shifts into the implementation and roll-out phase.
When working to encourage adoption, users should be reminded that the solution will be the database of record. The champion plays an integral part in this process by working to achieve greater buy-in and collaboration. This is typically accomplished by having the champion communicate how the new solution works and the specific benefits it confers in each department. The champion will also remind users of the inherent risks of having older data (spreadsheets, for example) in circulation.
Once the adoption phase is complete and the solution is running seamlessly, the champion still has a key role to play — ensuring that everything remains current.
