Governance, risk management, and compliance have been front of mind with many business and IT executives during the past few years, largely the result of the introduction and enforcement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act starting in 2004.

"Spending on Sarbanes-Oxley is only the visible tip of the compliance iceberg," said John Hagerty, vice president of research at AMR Research. "Any expectation that compliance spending might moderate is just wishful thinking as companies in all industries grapple with increased regulatory concerns and stricter governance and risk policies within their own firms."

Aside from Sarbanes-Oxley, the 325 North American business leaders and IT professionals surveyed by AMR said that they will address a plethora of compliance issues in 2006. These are -- in order of importance as ranked by the survey participants -- Securities and Exchange Commission, customer compliance, document/record retention requirements, manufacturing traceability, supply chain traceability, Food and Drug Administration, security and privacy rules, and other.

The survey also shows that technology is playing an increasingly significant role in the integration of compliance requirements into existing business processes. Seventy-five percent of companies will leverage compliance to improve business performance with almost $9 billion of the $27.3 billion spent on compliance in 2006 earmarked for technology.

Companies that treat compliance as more than just a necessary budget item are seeing unexpected benefits. Survey respondents ranked the top business benefits of compliance as:

Streamlining business process - 36%
Better quality - 28%
More secure information environment - 14%
Supply globalization efforts -11%
Better visibility to operations - 10%
Other - 1%