I was recently invited to join the Institute of Regulation’s regular podcast, hosted by chair Marcial Boo, to discuss the topic of commercialising regulation.
The question posed was whether, against a backdrop of tight budgets, regulators should be able to commercialise their intellectual property.
At TSO we work with many regulators to make their regulation and guidance easier to find, use and understand. This includes creating priced products to meet the needs of specific target audiences.
Regulators’ core assets are the rules and regulations themselves. Often these are published in a way that is not particularly user-friendly, for example as multiple PDFs that are not cross referenced or linked.
Whilst the regulation itself is, and should be, freely available, the costs of creating it in new, more accessible and digestible, formats are additional costs for regulators. There can be a tension between providing the best service to regulated organisations and maximising stretched budgets.
Regulated people and organisations have different requirements and more useful products can help them both comply and grow. They might need digital learning to help them understand rules; checklists to help them comply; or data feeds of content to integrate into third party systems. Charging a small fee for these products can offset the costs of production. In fact, TSO works with many regulators on a commercial basis where we bear the costs of content development, production, sales and marketing and provide a royalty back to clients. Creating those new formats and products does not cost the regulator anything at all. Many regulators find that the income stream from creating commercial products and services enables them to support value add services, improve the usability of their core guidance, or keep the costs of core services lower for everyone.
You can listen to the podcast, hosted by Marcial Boo and also featuring Samatha Walsh from Deloitte, on the Institute of Regulation website here: https://ioregulation.org/podcast
Blog post written by Richard South, CEO.
