| India lags APAC in regulatory compliance |
| BS Reporter / Mumbai July 24, 2007 |
| Indian companies lag their counterparts in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region when it comes to the adoption of regulatory compliance programmes, according to a MarketShare survey. Only 18% of India companies have already implemented regulatory compliance programmes as compared to 42% in Asia Pacific. The survey also revealed that Indian respondents currently spend a low proportion of their IT budget on compliance-related activities, but it qualified that spending will increase in the near future. Only 20% report they currently spend "more than 15%" of their total IT budget on compliance-related activities. The outlook is only slightly better with 26% planning to spend "over 15%" of their total IT budgets on compliance-related activities over the next 2 years. In India, it was revealed that while more than two-thirds (68%) of companies agreed there were business benefits in implementing compliance initiatives, only 18% of companies have already implemented compliance programmes. The level of compliance programme implementations in India is lower than the APAC average of 42%, and lags leaders like Japan (56%) and Singapore (52%). However, the future uptake is promising with 46% of respondents from India planning to implement compliance programmes by end-2008. Keshav Prakash, country manager for India, Serena Software (on whose behalf the survey was conducted), said: "Take-up of compliance programs in India is mainly driven by corporate headquarters demands and global trade requirements. If companies in India want to do business with multinational corporation |
