Manual processes, more work

The study also showed that most of the respondents relied on manual processes to achieve compliance, although manual processes and a lack of centralized control are contributing to spiralling costs in an increasingly regulated environment.

More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed reported that they maintained information about the status of their IT compliance controls in multiple spreadsheets and often within different organizational units.

More than 75 percent of respondents said that the operation, testing, monitoring and reporting of IT controls were at best a combination of automated and manual processes.

"This survey verifies what we regularly hear from customers -- that compliance remains a big challenge for them in both direct cost and impact to business processes, and the issue grows with every regulatory change or addition," Lina Liberti, Vice President, CA Security Management, said. "Automation of compliance processes and centralization of controls is a key ingredient for how businesses can bring efficiency to their compliance processes."