The Resource Reality
The hidden cost of continuous DORA compliance
The divide between organizations struggling with DORA compliance and those succeeding isn't about size, technology sophistication, or budget. It's about operational model. Treating DORA as a stand-alone compliance project means you are perpetually at risk of falling behind. DORA is here to stay – and many elements are making into individual member state bills, including the UK’s Operational Resilience Act. Continuous controls monitoring, vendor assessments, executive oversight, and regulatory submissions will continue indefinitely, consuming resources exponentially if managed as a project - and that burden grows as your technology estate grows. Instead, financial firms treating DORA as operational transformation achieve sustainable compliance that becomes business-as-usual. They’re architecting operational resilience. They’re building the frameworks, implementing the capabilities, establishing the metrics, and creating the visibility that allows their organization not just to comply with DORA but to genuinely withstand, respond to, and recover from ICT disruptions.
Continuous Controls Monitoring as a sustainable compliance process
Continuous Controls Monitoring represents the operational answer - not just as a technology, but as a comprehensive approach that combines automated data collection, real-time risk visibility, and operational reporting, and sustainable compliance processes.
Strategic steps to overcome this blocker
1. Ruthlessly prioritize automation investments
Manual DORA compliance doesn't scale. Research demonstrates that organizations can automate up to 80% of DORA-related technical tasks, reducing overall required time and personnel by 50-70%.
Every hour your team spends manually gathering logs or compiling evidence packets is an hour not spent on actual risk management and operational improvements.
2. Leverage DORA as a catalyst for broader operational improvements
Don't view DORA purely as a regulatory burden. Reframe it as a catalyst for operational improvements that deliver value well beyond compliance. When you implement continuous controls monitoring for DORA, you simultaneously gain:
- Real-time visibility that accelerates incident response
- Improved change management safety through dependency mapping
- Operational efficiency through automated compliance operations
- Better decision-making through data-driven risk insights
These benefits extend far beyond regulatory compliance into how you operate as an organization.