From manual regulatory monitoring to a standing watch

Client

Date

$50B+ global technology company

08/2026

The challenge

A $50B+ global technology company runs a 70-person regulatory affairs function. Finding, reading, structuring and routing regulatory developments was manual and reactive, consuming most of the team's capacity before any analysis or action could start, and by the time an item reached the right people weeks had often passed.

The solution

FifthRow set up a standing regulatory intelligence system: public and official sources in, scored and mapped developments out, delivered into the tools the team already works in. It runs continuously against the company's own regulatory footprint rather than on request.

1,938

analyst-hours equivalent, two weeks

6 of 6

client criteria met in full

CoverageEvery exposure area, all jurisdictions

Developments returned224 in two weeks

Analyst time equivalent~1,938 hours in two weeks

Acceptance criteria6 of 6 met or exceeded

Capacity projected at full deployment25–35 FTEs, 50–70% of the function

01 — CONTINUOUS SOURCE MONITORING

The first layer replaces the part of the job that consumed most of the team's week: going and looking. It watches the company's own regulatory footprint continuously rather than when someone has time.

Core Activities

Watches official and public sources across all operating jurisdictions
Surfaces draft rules, enforcement actions and policy signals as they appear
Tracks comment windows with deadlines attached
Follows proceedings that signal where a rule is heading
Covers every exposure area, extensible to new jurisdictions

The Results

The function no longer discovers a development because someone happened to read the right newsletter. Coverage is a specification rather than a function of who had a free afternoon, and comment windows are visible while there is still time to use them.

1,483

sources reviewed, zero reading time

02 — RELEVANCE SCORING & IMPACT MAPPING

Acquiring the material is the cheap half. The second layer does what analysts previously did by hand: works out what each item means for this company, and who has to do something about it.

Core Activities

Structures every item into requirements, penalties, deadlines and what it affects
Maps each to the business areas it lands on, calibrated to this company
Classifies relevance high, medium or low, with the reasoning attached
Classifies urgency: watch, assess, or act now
Determines scope including indirect and cascading exposure, and returns a next step with owner and timeframe

The Results

Raw regulatory material arrives as decisions rather than as reading. Every item carries the same structure, the same scoring and the same reasoning, so two people looking at the same development reach the same view of what it means.

224

developments scored with recommended actions

03 — DELIVERY INTO EXISTING SYSTEMS

The third layer puts the intelligence where the work already happens, and keeps everything it has ever processed queryable rather than filed.

Core Activities

Delivers structured output other internal systems consume directly
Makes intelligence queryable from the internal assistants teams already use
Sends digests daily, weekly or custom, not one fixed report
Exports into the document, presentation and spreadsheet formats already in use
Keeps every item stored, source-verified and retrievable, with a full audit trail

The Results

Legal, product, compliance and policy pull from the same source of truth and can run their own analyses on top of it. Regulatory intelligence stops being a periodic deliverable and becomes a body of structured data that compounds with every cycle.

functions on one intelligence base

What it proved

Against part of the footprint, a two-week run reviewed 1,483 sources, returned 224 verified developments scored with recommended actions, and saved an estimated 1,938 analyst hours. All six criteria the company's own legal and regulatory leads set in advance were met or exceeded, including full accuracy on source acquisition and a three of three match with subject-matter experts.

The system is now in production. At full deployment it is projected to recapture 25 to 35 full-time equivalents, 50 to 70% of the time the function spends acquiring and synthesising material, and to cut response time from weeks to under a day. Both are projections from the measured window, not results to date. What the function already holds is a continuous watch over its own footprint, one structured record in place of separate trackers, and a source-verified body of intelligence four internal functions can query.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Analyst time on source material	most of a 70-person function	~1,938 hours saved in two weeks	Capacity returned to analysis
Client-set acceptance criteria	6 agreed, none demonstrated	6 of 6 met or exceeded	Full pass
Coverage consistency	each analyst's own method	one structured record, scored identically	Single standard function-wide
Comment window visibility	surfaced late, sometimes missed	open and upcoming windows tracked with timelines	Seen in advance, not discovered
Known coverage gaps	ad hoc external engagements	continuous in-house monitoring of scoped areas	Held in-house, not commissioned

CONTINUOUS COVERAGE

Monitoring runs against the company's own regulatory footprint without anyone starting it, so nothing waits for an analyst to have a free afternoon.

SINGLE STRUCTURED RECORD

Every development is summarised, scored and mapped the same way, so one view replaces the separate trackers different people used to keep.

DECISIONS, NOT READING

Each item arrives with a relevance call, an urgency level and a recommended next step, so routing no longer depends on who read it first.

FULL TRACEABILITY

Every item carries its source and an audit trail, so a regulatory position can be defended long after the decision was taken.

QUERYABLE INTELLIGENCE LAYER

Structured intelligence is stored and retrievable rather than filed, so teams run their own analyses on a base that grows with every cycle.

DELIVERY WHERE THE WORK HAPPENS

Intelligence arrives inside the systems the function already uses, rather than becoming another place someone has to remember to check.

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