Compliance Advisory
A company's proprietary information and services are among its most valuable resources. Companies enable the use of their information and services via contractual licensing, royalties, (re)distribution and branding agreements. If proprietary information or services are used by third parties without a robust contract in place or in a contractually non-compliant manner a number of issues can arise, including:
• Revenue loss as well as devaluing of the proprietary information/services in the marketplace;
• Branding issues: in a competitive environment a company should receive appropriate recognition for its services. Failure to enforce contractual terms/conditions can diminish both the reputation of a company and its revenues.
• Third Party and Regulatory Liabilities: data usage not covered by contract terms may violate third party or vendor contracts or state / federal rules and laws, thereby creating potential liabilities.
Mirus Global Advisory Services can help to resolve or mitigate these issues by conducting compliance audits to ensure that all information access, usage, storage,(re)distribution, permissioning and reporting is in line with stated contract terms and conditions and is being appropriately invoiced. The information that is obtained during an audit will help your company to understand how customers use your information and services and to optimize revenue.
Our compliance experts have conducted over 400 audits on 5 continents, 24 countries and have identified more than USD $60 million in recovered revenues. We have extensive experience analyzing non-display usage of data in applications, websites and more. As part of an audit we can also help to standardize both your and your customers processes and policies in areas such as fee waivers, price increases, contract terminations, rejected and pending contracts, usage declaration reconciliations and royalty revenue calculations. In addition, Mirus can help your organization develop new automated analysis tools to identify revenue opportunities related to the use of your proprietary and third party information.
Contract Compliance / Data Audits
No matter what type of data product your company offers an audit can be conducted to ensure that all information access, usage, storage,(re)distribution, permissoning and reporting is in line with contract terms and conditions and is being billed appropriately. The audit can be conducted either on-site or remotely (as appropriate) and can be customized to suit your needs. The audit process is broken up into six main workflows:
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Nomination & Planning
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Notification & Scheduling
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Pre-Audit Analysis
4. Audit
5. Reporting
6. Follow-up & Closure
Each audit traces the data from point of origin by the customer to its last end use. All bespoke and third party permissioning systems (i.e. DACS et al) are reviewed and analyzed. Data used by internal and external end users, first tier and downstream applications, websites, and storage systems are reviewed for all sites (production, data lakes, testing, back-up, load balance and disaster sites). All usage is compared to any customer declarations, contract terms and conditions, permissible uses and third party requirements. A written report is provided which details all usage and highlights any compliance concerns and required action items for the customer to rectify.
Permissioning Audits
If your customer is a re-vendor / redistributor of your data or service, their permissioning systems can be audited to ensure that your data / services are being used and distributed as per contract terms and conditions. The customer's reporting systems will then be analyzed to ensure that accurate declarations are being submitted to your company.
Redistribution of Data
Your customers may be providing your data to third parties via applications, websites (both public and private), written reports, login access and more. Our audits will review and report on this usage and ensure it is within contract terms and conditions.
In some instances non-customers may have received or otherwise scraped your proprietary company data and may be redistributing it or using it in their own competing products. The public distribution of this data can be analyzed and reported on so that appropriate negotiations and / or legal action can be taken.
Royalty Reports / Revenue Share
Audits may be needed for products or services that are covered by royalty reports and / or a revenue sharing agreement. In addition to auditing relative to contract terms and conditions, Mirus can create / review royalty / revenue sharing calculation process and procedures to ensure that your revenues are captured accurately and appropriately. If needed, Mirus can also create process specification documents and / or instructional videos as well as bespoke templates that can automate the calculation of the amount owed by your customers.
Declaration Audits
Your customers' contract terms may require that they provide honesty or declaration reports on their usage of your data so that they can be billed appropriately by your company. Our audit will review the customer's usage, permissiong and reporting systems as well as the accuracy of their reporting relative to the amount you have invoiced. Additionally, Mirus can also create standard or bespoke declaration forms that will automatically calculate the amount owed for a billing period based on contract terms and conditions.
Pricing Models
An audit may show the customer's usage is outside of their contracted terms and conditions. In some instances your company may not have standard licensing terms available that reflect the ways in which your customers are using your data. Mirus can help your company develop appropriate pricing models for such new data use cases.