Compliance is no longer just a control mechanism — it has become a foundational pillar of modern corporate governance.
According to the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO), this transformation reflects the maturation of organizations in the face of a more complex global landscape, marked by geopolitical volatility, digital acceleration, and increasing regulatory pressures.
This new reality has made the integration between compliance and corporate risk management inevitable. It is from this connection that an organization’s true ability to protect its institutional reputation, ensure integrity in decision-making, and sustain performance consistently over time emerges.
The Advancement of Compliance in the Face of Business Environment Complexity
According to the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA), 78% of European companies state that the interdependence between risk and sustainability requires strengthening compliance programs as part of risk management.
This trend is also reflected in Latin America, where ESG demands and data protection regulations have been accelerating the maturation of compliance programs.
But this movement is not merely regulatory — it is strategic. Companies have realized that strong compliance is the foundation of corporate trust and the basis upon which solid relationships with customers, investors, regulators, and society are built.
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The Role of Compliance at the Three Organizational Levels
In this context, an effective compliance program must operate in an integrated manner across three complementary levels — strategic, tactical, and operational — supported by four fundamental pillars: structure, culture, technology, and regulatory pressure.
Each of these pillars defines the level of maturity and resilience of corporate governance, determining the organization’s ability to balance control, performance, and innovation.
Strategic Compliance and Corporate Governance
At the strategic level, compliance ceases to be a monitoring function and takes on a leadership role in corporate governance.
At this level, it acts as a link between ethics, risk, and decision-making, directly influencing the direction of the organization. This role requires a systemic vision, cross-functional integration, and support from senior management.
According to COSO, strategic compliance should be integrated into the Enterprise Risk Management system and report directly to the board or audit committee. This structure ensures independence, legitimacy, and influence in strategic decisions — essential conditions for compliance to fulfill its role with authority.
However, as highlighted by the Harvard Business Review, many Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) still face a lack of autonomy, the absence of their own budget, and difficulty demonstrating return on investment (ROI). To break this cycle, it is necessary to institutionalize compliance as a strategic function, with dedicated resources, clear goals, and impact indicators linked to corporate objectives. This approach legitimizes the function and repositions it as a value generator within the organizational structure.
Considering this scenario, the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS, 2024) emphasizes that the main challenge for companies lies in converting compliance results into strategic indicators. In this case, the solution is the creation of integrated executive dashboards that connect KRIs (Key Risk Indicators) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to business outcomes such as loss reduction, operational efficiency, and mitigation of reputational risks. In this way, compliance is no longer perceived as a cost but is recognized as a source of tangible value and competitive advantage.
This evolution, however, does not depend solely on structure — it depends on culture. The study The State of Risk and Compliance 2024 by NAVEX Global shows that resistance from operational leadership remains one of the greatest barriers to organizational maturity.
Changing this perception requires translating compliance into the language of business, demonstrating how it accelerates sound decision-making, enables responsible innovation, and protects corporate reputation.
As James Lam (Wiley, 2023) argues, the key lies in building a risk-driven decision-making culture — a model in which decisions are guided by awareness and analysis, not by fear or risk aversion. This mindset transforms compliance into a strategic partner for business areas, rather than an operational barrier.
The same logic applies when we look at the expansion of governance beyond the company’s boundaries. With the advancement of global anti-corruption laws, the role of compliance has come to include suppliers, distributors, and business partners. Modern programs already incorporate contractual integrity clauses, automated third-party monitoring, and continuous processes — practices that consolidate compliance as the guardian of ethics and transparency throughout the entire business ecosystem.
Finally, as Kaplan & Norton (HBR, 2023) state, ethics, sustainability, and governance cease to be parallel dimensions when strategic goals, risk indicators, and compliance objectives are integrated.
This alignment allows compliance to actively participate in the strategic planning cycle, ensuring coherence between purpose, risk, and execution.
Strengthen your organization's risk management with our specialists.
Strengthen your organization's risk management with our specialists.
If strategic compliance defines the direction, tactical compliance is what ensures that the course is followed. It is at this level that guidelines are transformed into practices, ensuring that strategy is translated into consistent, measurable, and auditable execution.
According to the Journal of Risk and Financial Management, the tactical level is responsible for translating policies and codes into operational practices. It is essential to understand the impact of this, since according to FERMA, more than 60% of compliance managers report task overload and a lack of integration between departments — a clear sign that maturity depends as much on interdepartmental coordination as on role clarity.
The solution lies in collaborative governance, with formal agreements (SLAs) between compliance, legal, finance, and operations. This practice reduces rework, improves delivery predictability, and strengthens internal accountability.
Moreover, organizations with a “blind aversion to risk,” as highlighted by the Harvard Business Review, end up sacrificing innovation and resilience.
The path, therefore, is to redefine the role of tactical compliance as a business enabler, promoting responsible innovation in which control does not block progress but ensures that it happens safely.
Technology is a central pillar in this process. The Risk.net report, Top 10 Operational Risks for 2025, highlights that process automation and follow-ups are currently the main drivers of efficiency in compliance.
Solutions based on integrated Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platforms anchored in the ISO 31000 and COSO frameworks allow organizations to consolidate data, optimize analyses, and create complete audit trails.
However, as ISO emphasizes, no automation can replace qualified human judgment. The balance between technology and analytical discernment is what ensures contextualized decisions aligned with corporate strategy.
Operational Compliance as Routine and Proven Value
At the operational level, compliance takes shape in daily activities — in the audits, controls, and evidence that uphold the integrity of the system.
According to Risk Management Magazine, this is where the most common failures occur, such as task overload, lack of clarity in responsibilities, and excessive dependence on spreadsheets.
The Journal of Risk and Financial Management also warns about the pressure from business areas to “loosen” rules, prioritizing speed over compliance — a mistake that, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb reminds us in The Black Swan (Penguin, 2023), often precedes predictable crises.
ISO 31000 advises that every control must be linked to an identified risk, with traceable responsibilities and evidence. FERMA and COSO add that the use of intelligent workflows, automatic alerts, and digital audit trails is a sign of operational maturity.
In addition, studies such as How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk (Hubbard & Seiersen, 2023) reinforce the importance of quantifying risks in critical areas by integrating data from ERP, finance, and compliance systems to anticipate vulnerabilities and prioritize preventive actions.
At this level, strengthening internal audit as the third line of defense, according to the Institute of Risk Management (IRM), is essential to ensure independence, credibility, and traceability.
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The Integration Between Levels and the New Role of Compliance in Risk Management
When the three levels — strategic, tactical, and operational — work in a coordinated manner, compliance ceases to be a control structure and becomes a living governance system, capable of learning, evolving, and sustaining value over the long term.
COSO recommends that this integration follow three principles:
- Report to the highest level of governance.
- Act in accordance with the organization’s risk appetite.
- Maintain a continuous cycle of learning and improvement.
FERMA adds that the most mature companies are those that link their compliance indicators — such as training, audits, and resolved reports — to corporate performance metrics. This holistic view transforms compliance into a tool for business sustainability.
As Kaplan & Norton (HBR, 2023) summarize, the true value of governance lies in the coherence between risk, strategy, and execution. And although frameworks such as ISO 31000 and COSO ERM provide the methodological foundation, the competitive advantage lies in the ability to adapt them to the reality and culture of each business.
Culture, in fact, is the invisible link that connects all levels. Companies that treat compliance as part of their identity — and not merely as an obligation — according to the Harvard Business Review, show better performance in ESG metrics and greater stakeholder satisfaction.
Finally, the Corporate Governance Framework (COSO/NACD, 2025) points out that the most resilient organizations are those that combine transparency, accountability, and continuous learning, transforming compliance into a differentiator of credibility and sustainable growth.
The New Role of Compliance and Risk Management
The future of corporate governance, according to COSO and FERMA, lies in the full integration of risk, compliance, and governance.
This convergence creates a systemic vision in which compliance is no longer merely a line of defense but becomes a strategic component essential for protecting value, strengthening reputation, and sustaining responsible growth.
In practice, strategic compliance ensures legitimacy and long-term vision; tactical compliance translates policies into behaviors; and operational compliance sustains the traceability and trust that give life to the system.
As Peter L. Bernstein summarizes in Against the Gods (Wiley, 2023): “Risk management is the exercise of reason in the face of uncertainty.”
In this context, compliance emerges as the ethical and institutional instrument of that reason — uniting purpose, control, and responsibility in building more resilient, trustworthy, and sustainable organizations.
Schedule a conversation with an Actio specialist and discover how to integrate risk, compliance, and governance into truly strategic management.
