Regulatory compliance tops issues facing IT managers

Regulatory compliance will be the top business and technology issue facing IT managers and executives worldwide in the next 12 to 18 months.

That's one finding from a survey of over 3,100 members of ISACA (the Information Systems Audit and Control Association), a non-profit IT industry association serving over 86,000 information governance, control, security and audit professionals in over 95 countries.

ISACA identified 21 current business issues impacted by technology that face IT managers and executives, and asked respondents to rank them according to priority. ISACA assurance committee member and vice president of IT audit at Viacom, Anthony Noble, says keeping on top of legislative and regulatory requirements is a critical responsibility made more difficult because compliance efforts are still operating in "project" mode and have not yet been embedded into business processes.