How do I select a GRC solution for my business?

Selecting a governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solution can be very challenging. It must cover all three practices it stands for, without exception, which can sometimes be hard to integrate.

Regulations have especially been a pain point for many organizations, since business outcomes largerly depend on compliance nowadays. In fact, a recent forecast revealed that GRC solutions revenues have been growing steadily and should continue to do so, boosted by regulations becoming particularly stringent around privacy amid the pandemic.

To select a suitable GRC solution for your business, you need to think about a variety of factors. We’ve talked to several industry professionals to get their insight on the topic.

Devin Amato, Principal, Deloitte

Cybersecurity GRC solutions act like hubs in organizations’ technology strategies with spokes reaching into existing cyber technologies, operational and functional/asset source systems.

When organizations try to select an enterprise or standalone GRC solution or a number of solutions to use in concert, a few key elements are worth deep discussion: how the solution(s) fits into overall IT strategy, what the desired use of the solution(s) is and how the solution(s) can help digitally transform the organization’s cyber GRC efforts.

First, a GRC or cyber risk and compliance automation platform should align with the organization’s overall technology strategy. Let the defined cyber processes narrow the field of potential software solutions.

Second, discern the outcomes to be achieved by the GRC solution, and then determine how closely the market vendors stack-up. Look at use cases and next generation reporting to evaluate GRC solutions and out-of-the-box capabilities those solutions offer for integrations and dashboards.

Finally, a strong GRC solution should help digitally transform any organization’s approach to cyber risk and compliance, including areas such as persona-based experiences, controlled transparency within the system and overall optical ease.

Michael Maggio, EVP of Product, Reciprocity

The pandemic accelerated the need for risk management strategies, as it exposed gaps in many GRC programs. Today’s GRC solutions provide content and tools to assess, manage and monitor compliance and risk. Here are 3 key considerations when selecting a GRC solution:

How fast can you see value? Effective compliance is a catalyst for reducing risk in organizations. While spreadsheets and email are familiar, you want an intuitive, simple user experience that collects and organizes related data in one central place and adds prescriptive guidance, best practices, and available GRC expertise. This mitigates user apprehension, drives adoption and delivers business value quickly.

Will it shorten audit cycles? Effective solutions use automation, integrations, available content and pre-built workflows to drive efficiency. Can controls for one framework be re-used in others? Solutions that provide a single source of truth for compliance controls enable immediate needs to be met and allow expansion, re-use and on-going efficiency as compliance and risk programs mature.

Does it help you be more proactive? Visibility into performance and gaps through actionable insights, benchmarking and reporting helps you get ahead versus always being reactive. You can focus on improving and monitoring controls to strengthen compliance and reduce risks.

Dustin Radtke, CTO, OnSolve

When selecting a GRC solution, it’s essential to find a platform that utilizes modern tech like AI and machine learning to automate risk analysis and create intelligence that leaders can act on.

Rapid access to actionable risk intelligence is a crucial differentiating factor. AI can gather risk data from thousands of sources in seconds, filter out extraneous information and instantly correlate it to company’s people or assets to create a 360-degree view of the risk landscape. This helps analysts make more informed decisions and essentially, minimize the impact of a critical event and quickly return to a fully operational status.

This makes AI a real game changer when it comes to business continuity. AI breaks critical events down and specifies the evolving risks that are relevant to your business. This enables you with the ongoing information you need to protect supply chains, avoid production or service disruptions, evacuate employees, and understand when and how to activate business continuity plans.

With AI, you can focus on specific categories and types of critical events pertinent to your business and those most likely to impact your people, places and property. AI can even go so far as detecting the distance between your people or assets and a critical event, automating control over when an alert should trigger so you don’t lose time when every minute counts.

Jon Siegler, CPO, LogicGate

When you select a GRC solution for your business, it may feel like you’re running in place with all the different options and solutions you have to vet. In order to find the right solution, you must find one that meets you at your maturity level and helps achieve your GRC goals.

Solutions, today, should enable you to implement a holistic risk management approach and gain trust with stakeholders, both internal and external. It must help you turn GRC into a competitive differentiator — not a negative — and support you at every growth stage. In order to accomplish this, look for a solution that’ll help standardize your risk and compliance processes, support interconnectivity among your entire GRC program — including auditing, third-party risk management, controls management and risk quantification.

Achieve a holistic approach with real-time visibility and up-to-date, user-friendly applications and integrations. The solution you choose should allow you to create a connected, central repository of evidence and documentation in order to help mature your program.

Don’t trust just any clunky legacy solution or manual, spreadsheet-based system. In order to level up your business and grow at the rate you want, a proper, agile GRC program must be implemented. And, it all starts with having the correct management solution in place.