The Top Compliance Challenges to Prepare for in 2025

As the compliance environment continues to evolve, businesses must stay ahead of upcoming regulatory challenges to remain compliant, competitive, and secure. Today's blog will highlight the key compliance hurdles expected in 2025 and provide essential strategies to help organizations prepare effectively, from employee training to compliance consulting.

The Evolving World of IT Compliance

Compliance regulations are notoriously complex and ever-changing, and this year will be no exception. Heightened concerns for data privacy, environmental considerations, and AI developments all require updated regulations to ensure we're acting ethically and responsibly.

These guidelines are important to keep our technology and business practices in line, but they can present challenges for organizations trying to keep up with the constantly evolving details. Read on to learn about how you can protect clients, stay competitive, and avoid penalties and fines for non-compliance.

What Compliance Challenges Are Coming in 2025?

Take a look through some of these anticipated trends so you can prepare your compliance consulting and plans for the coming year.

Data Privacy and Protection Regulations

Employees and consumers are becoming more conscious of their data and how it's used than ever, and regulations like GDPR, CCPA, DUA, and more are setting new benchmarks for protecting personal data and granting consumers greater control over their information.

These laws emphasizing transparency and accountability are much needed, but it can be difficult for companies to adopt new data storage, management, and protection systems.

Cybersecurity and Data Breach Notification Requirements

With the phased implementation of CMMC 2.0 beginning and cyber threats becoming more sophisticated, comprehensive cybersecurity plans are becoming increasingly important to protect your business and meet compliance standards. 

Companies of all industries, especially SMBs, may struggle to find the resources to pay for compliance consulting and keep up with such stringent requirements.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Regulations

Climate change, large-scale weather patterns, energy consumption requirements, and more all make ESG regulations more complicated. 

Companies will have to spend even more precious time and money preparing for audits, correctly reporting ESG efforts, etc. They’ll also continue to face the difficulty of finding cost-effective, but responsibly sourced, materials and being transparent with their supply chain practices.

Labor and Employment Law Updates

Recent changes in labor and employment laws have introduced stricter regulations surrounding remote work, employee classification, and protections for gig workers. These updates place added emphasis on ensuring compliance with IT systems, particularly in tracking remote workforce policies, managing employee data securely, and correctly classifying workers.

Businesses will need to adapt their technology, update their HR systems, and pay for compliance consulting to meet these evolving standards, protect their employees, and avoid potential penalties.

AI, Automation, and Ethical Compliance

AI is taking the world by storm, and governments and organizations everywhere are working to decide what kinds of regulations are necessary to help us use these resources responsibly. Companies will have to work to balance innovation and productivity supported by AI systems while still staying compliant with policies designed to avoid bias and promote transparency.

How Can I Prepare?

Navigating these developments can seem overwhelming, but with a little preparation and help from outside sources, your business will be more than ready to handle any compliance challenges that come your way.

• Training and Education: Make sure your team members are up to date on new laws and regulations by holding regular trainings to teach them new policies and best practices.

• Compliance Audits and Gap Analysis: Hire a professional team to perform compliance audits and gap analyses to ensure you're meeting regulations and catch any security gaps before they become major issues.

• Compliance Consulting: Work with experts such as compliance officers, legal advisors, or specialists at an IT firm to work through questions specific to your infrastructure and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Face Compliance with Confidence with ICS

Keeping track of your business's compliance is a big job. And with a growing emphasis on protecting clients, hefty fines for non-compliance, and increasing cyber attacks, you can't afford to go without clear, expert support.

Our techs at ICS are well-versed in a variety of regulations and have years of experience helping businesses carefully implement the right procedures and tools to stay compliant. We'll help you get ready to roll with the compliance changes ahead so you can continue through the new year with confidence.

Reach out for more information about our compliance consulting services or to schedule your IT assessment.