Five compliance and policy management trends for 2025
- Dan Hawtrey
- 4 February 2025
The world of work continues to evolve at speed. New regulations, new technology, an unpredictable political and business climate, and the normal changes that go on with any organisation, mean that continual change is the only certainty.
The world of compliance, risk and policy management is at the forefront of changes inside and outside the workplace. Professionals in the field need to navigate ongoing challenges, but also seize the relative opportunities.
While 2025 is certain to be another volatile year, it is difficult to predict exactly what will happen. However, there are a number of wider trends that are already taking place which we think will impact the world of compliance and policy management in the coming twelve months. For those planning to invest in or use policy management solutions, it is worth bearing these wider trends in mind for 2025.
Here’s our take on five compliance and policy management trends for 2025.
1. AI starts to influence compliance and policy management solutions
The rapid evolution of generative AI has started to impact different aspects of the workplace, and the world of compliance and policy management is no different. In 2025 we think AI will not only impact approaches to compliance and policy management, but also the solutions that are deployed to drive compliance and manage risk.
In a recent post we explored how AI is impacting the future of policy management solutions in various different ways:
- The risks associated with AI and the opportunities for new ways of working will require greater management of policies and SOPs, with software helping to reduce the associated manual effort.
- Generative AI embedded into policy management solutions has the ability to generate new policy formats at scale more quickly and at reduced cost; these formats might be more engaging and easier to digest for employees, helping to support overall compliance.
- Policy management solutions may start to feature more sophisticated chatbot-style interfaces to that employees can ask questions about policies in natural language, and then receive relevant answers, rather than an employee having to go direct to the original policy.
- Employees may also be able start to even receive personalised suggestions for policies they need to read based on their role, tasks and circumstances.
- AI will be able to deliver more sophisticated scanning for threats at scale across the digital workplace, while also respecting data privacy concerns.
- Policy management solutions may even be able to support horizon and legal scanning with suggestions on which of your policies need to be reviewed based on external legal and regulatory changes, or even on internal meetings and strategy updates.
Will all these things happen in 2025? It’s hard to say, but we certainly think we will start to see some of these reflected in the evolution of policy management solutions.
2. Data and cybersecurity risks continues top compliance concerns
The huge damage caused by data beaches and cyberattacks remains a significant risk for every organisation, and in 2025 this seems destined to remain the pre-eminent compliance related concern. Previous research from Thomson Reuters had 82% of risk and compliance professional identifying “data and cybersecurity risk” as the most significant area of concern for their organization. This is also borne out by experience; at least 28% of compliance professionals have experienced a data privacy or cybersecurity breach in the past three years.
Cybersecurity is not only a major headache for IT functions, but also even for leadership, particularly with a perceived increase in risk. A CEO survey from KPMG says 69% of CEOs in the US are increasing their investments in cybersecurity, while an equivalent survey from PwC shows that 64% of CEOs believe that AI is heightening cybersecurity risk.
We believe in 2025 there will be a continuing focus for compliance and policy management professionals on cybersecurity and data security, not only because of the ongoing levels of threat but also the increasing compliance requirements such as NIS2, the EU directive on cybersecurity. There will also be an ongoing need to educate employees with mandatory reading and access to up-to-date policies.
3. ESG continues to strongly influence compliance and policy management
Over the past few years Environmental, Society and Governance (ESG) matters have been rising up the corporate agenda. They are increasingly important not only in compliance and corporate reporting, but also in supporting a reputation with customers.
ESG incorporates multiple areas including:
- Reaching sustainability and net zero goals
- A range of ethical practices
- Treatment of employees, customers and local communities
- Support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I)
- Ensuring standards across the supply chain
- And more!
Legislation such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and national equivalents, as well as more specific measures that crack down on “greenwashing” means ESG standards are increasingly impacting compliance. Meanwhile the importance of ESG and ethical matters to customers, and even internal HR policies, mean that organisations are developing ESG-related policies that employees need to digest and attest to.
In 2025 we see this trend continuing and trickling down to smaller organisations too who are issuing reports around ESG that go beyond compliance-related reporting and are aimed at positioning themselves as responsible, sustainable and ethical businesses. However to make that work, employees need to be able to access the policies that support new processes and guide behaviours.
4. The cost of compliance continues to grow
The regulatory environment impacting businesses is increasingly complex. PwC’s latest global CEO survey (already cited) indicates that 69% of business leaders believe the regulatory environment as the biggest inhibitor to creating value, the highest response compared to other answers. At the same time, 57% of compliance professionals are seeing “increased specialisation in compliance roles” due to increased regulatory pressure.
All this is seeing the cost of compliance continue to grow over the years. There are multiple statistics that show compliance costs are rising, particularly in heavily regulated sectors like financial services. Deloitte in the US suggests that operational compliance costs are 60% greater now compared to before the financial crisis. Meanwhile, a study of the UK financial services sector found compliance costs rose on average by 12% in 2023, with 95% of firms reporting an increase in costs. Additional research in the US shows that on average firms spend between 1.3% and 3.33% of what they spend on wages on compliance, with this highest for organisations with around 500 employees.
We don’t see this getting any easier and the cost of compliance is likely to continue to grow in 2025.
5. The use of technology for compliance and policy management continues to grow
With the additional costs of compliance and the associated increased operational effort, it’s no wonder that more compliance teams are turning to technology solutions to manage the heavy lifting. Multiple market analysts such as IMARC Group are bullish about the growth prospects of the global policy management software market, predicting a 10.4% CAGR with a market value of over USD $4 billion by 2032. The research from Thomson Reuters (already cited above) also suggests that around half (49%) of compliance professionals in the UK are adopting technology solutions to meet increased regulatory pressures.
It’s an exciting market where people have significant choice, with a range of mature solutions, compliance suites or challenger brands like Xoralia. We believe one of the most existing developments in 2025 will be the continuing opportunities to drive compliance and employee attestation directly in the flow of work, particularly for businesses with Microsoft 365.
For example, we offer a number of intranet and SharePoint widgets that enable employees to view targeted policies, attestation reminders and more within an intranet, SharePoint or through Teams. This brings compliance and policy management more into where work actually happens.
Policy management in 2025
2025 will be another interesting year for compliance and policy management professionals. Do you agree with our view of the trends we’ll see in the coming year? Is there anything we missed?
The story behind Xoralia
Xoralia was built by the team at Content Formula, an intranet and digital workplace consultancy that has built SharePoint intranets for some of the world’s most famous companies. Now, most companies want their policies and procedures on the intranet but they don’t just want to store them there, they also want tools to help better manage them. Over the years we came across just about every single requirement for a policy management system. As this article above explains, there are gaps in SharePoint and so we never built what in our mind was the perfect policy management system.
However, one of our clients challenged us to build something for them that filled all the gaps but still used SharePoint at the back end. We had a great relationship with them and agreed to share the budget to do this, provided we could then market the solution to others. That was in 2019. We’re now on version 3 of Xoralia and the product has grown and evolved a lot.
3 benefits you can expect from Xoralia
Make it easy to find policies
Centralised policy library with powerful search and filtering
Reduce administrative burden
Automations and notifications so that all policy tasks are carried out on time
Demonstrate compliance and best practice
Sophisticated tracking and dashboards to drive and measure compliance.
And lots more!
What our clients say
Xoralia drives user engagement and compliance...
The platform's user attestation functionality has been particularly impactful, leading to a remarkable increase from ~50% to 86% in user attestation within a matter of weeks.
Rian Stuart, IT Manager, Twinstream
...simplifies our policy management...
It not only simplifies our policy management, but also enhances our overall compliance posture and has proven to be a significant time-saver for our organization.
Nadja Friedrichs, Vice President of HR, Boyum IT
...single source of truth and access for employees...
We successfully rolled out the tool with a minimal internal learning curve and achieved a 97% read / acknowledgement rate on our first assigned policy.
How to get started with Xoralia
Step 1: request a demo
Fill out our form and we will be in touch to arrange a time. You can even book a time yourself.
Step 2: get a price proposal
If you think Xoralia is for you ask us for a quote. This will set out any options you may have.
Step 3: install and launch
We’ll install Xoralia in your environment (or you can do it yourself). We’ll provide training and support to get you up and running quickly
Here's what you'll get
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Central policy library
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Search and filter tools
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Mandatory read policies with attestations
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Quizzes
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Notifications and alerts
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Employee dashboard
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Line manager dashboard
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Works on mobile, in Teams and SharePoint
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New policy creation workflows
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Policy update workflows
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Review and approval gates
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Policy version history
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Compliance dashboard
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Audit trail
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Full reporting
And last but not least:
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Professional implementation service and support
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Evergreen software – frequent updates and improvements
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Comes with our "it just works" support warranty – we’ll fix any bugs, often before you even notice
Ready to get started?
Connect with us to streamline your policy management and ensure effortless compliance.
Perfect policy management solution for Microsoft 365 users.
I highly recommend Xoralia to any organisation seeking a robust and user-friendly policy management solution.
Xoralia seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365, particularly with SharePoint and Teams, aligning perfectly with our company's daily workflow..Rian Stuart, IT Manager, Twinstream