GRC Tool: Governance, Risk, and Compliance Simplified

A GRC tool is an online software platform that helps firms implement structured governance, risk, and compliance processes in line with industry best practices – enhancing risk management. Companies can create online risk and control registers, conduct risk assessments, and establish workflows to mitigate risks in high-risk areas. These platforms also support regulatory compliance, audit management, incident management, and alignment of risk with enterprise performance and strategic goals. Typically, they offer various dashboards and reporting options – providing teams with GRC analytics for a comprehensive view of risk and compliance to identify and address problem areas effectively. The automation enables firms to cut back on GRC resources, saving valuable time and money.

GRC stands for Governance, Risk and Compliance and the term is used collectively to describe the processes an organization uses to manage risk, ensure compliance with regulations, policies, and procedures, and ensure sufficient governance practices within the organization. GRC tools are software platforms that help firms to structure best practice risk & compliance processes that align with the guidance provided in the OCEG GRC capability model.

When choosing an enterprise GRC tool for risk management, companies must consider which staff and teams will be using the tool and the metrics they will need to report on. To enhance your GRC program, take into account the following considerations when selecting a GRC tool:

• The GRC regulations you must comply with and how they will influence the structure of your GRC framework within the GRC tool.
• The method you will use for categorizing and rating risks to establish a unified rating system across the enterprise.
• Whether the GRC tool can be customized to meet the unique, specific requirements of your organization.
• Consider if the GRC management software can scale with your organizations risk management and regulatory compliance needs, offering additional functionality as your requirements expand and your GRC process
• Check out the data privacy and security features provided by the GRC tool, and the additional security options available.
• Investigate whether the GRC tool offers integration capabilities to integrate with your other systems and platforms via APIs to maintain a single source of truth for risk and compliance data and enable real-time risk monitoring based on live company transactional statistics.
• Consider the users of the GRC platform, the type and format of data they will input, and the reports and metrics they need to generate, including their format and frequency.
• Consider the pricing model of the GRC tool – look for platforms that offer a flexible subscription model based on user numbers and number of modules implemented to ensure you only pay for what you need.
• Look for GRC tools for assurance leaders that provide a wealth of reporting outputs relating to your GRC activities for leadership teams and regulating bodies.
• Consider the GRC model you would like to adopt and make sure the platform can align with your internal risk and compliance needs.
• Ensure that the risk management solution within the GRC tool aligns with ISO 31000 best practice risk management processes.

The realized benefits of using a GRC tool include:

• Modern GRC tools are highly customizable – making it simple to tailor the platform to your bespoke needs and preferred terminology.
• Reduced time spent on risk reporting, data manipulation, and administrative tasks due to GRC automation and workflows.
• GRC software and tools for risk and compliance management offer a centralized view of risk and compliance activities across a company’s global operations – improving the overall GRC strategy of an organization.
• GRC tools ensure easier GRC management and improve an organizations GRC approach by enabling the entire organization to participate in risk management activities as part of their daily roles – generating extensive risk data to support enterprise decision-making.
• IT GRC tools provide better visibility into an organization’s IT risk profile and help manage cyber risk & vulnerabilities.
• GRC tools lower the costs associated with risk monitoring and reporting due to automation.
• GRC tools help to lower and reduce risk, by enabling firms to set up an active control library to reduce the likelihood of risk – regular checks and testing can also be carried out within the platform to ensure control effectiveness.
• GRC tools help with risk assessments by enabling staff to carry out online risk assessments – with results feeding directly into the platform.
• GRC tools enhance an organization’s enterprise risk management approach by facilitating crucial links between risk management, strategic planning, and operational performance – ensuring effective Integrated Risk Management (IRM) processes.
• GRC tools help firms build a GRC dashboard, offering detailed insights on how the firm can adjust operations to reduce risk, achieve strategic objectives, and ensure governance and compliance.
• GRC compliance tools enable firms to structure their processes in line with industry & government regulations to ensure regulatory compliance.
• Many GRC tools also offer strategic planning capabilities – enabling firms to manage risk in line with strategic objectives in order to achieve their business goals.
• Improved cybersecurity – GRC cyber tools ensure the organization can effectively manage and resolve cyber risks and incidents.

Here is a run down of some of the functionality and key features firms should look for when selecting a top GRC tool.

• Opt for a GRC tool that can be configured by your own users to significantly reduce costly implementation and professional services fees.
• Choose a GRC management tool with unlimited risk registers, types, and categories to enable comprehensive risk reporting across specific areas and the entire enterprise.
• Select GRC tooling solutions with multiple customizable reporting outputs to meet your specific operational needs.
• Opt for a GRC tool that integrates with your existing systems and data sources to ensure a single source of truth for all your risk and compliance data.
• Look for reliable GRC tools that offer numerous top features, including best-practice use cases for compliance, governance, incident reporting, project management, and ESG – allowing you to manage these functions in one platform and integrate the data for better reporting.
• Choose GRC compliance tools that provide out-of-the-box templates and forms to meet regulatory requirements such as GDPR, ISO 31000, COSO, and NIST to ensure regulatory compliance – formulating compliance programs that align with industry best-practices.
• A GRC tools cybersecurity capabilities should include, IT and cyber risk management, IT incident management, business continuity, data privacy compliance and business continuity planning – preferably in one platform so these functions can be integrated.
• Look for a GRC system that works for multiple industries with live demonstrable use cases in your sector. Key industries that benefit from GRC tools include highly regulated industries like, healthcare, financial services, gambling & gaming and high-risk industries like, retail, transportation, logistics, oil, gas, energy, water and manufacturing.

• Risk management and compliance suffer as teams are relying on substandard risk and compliance data due to a lack of data governance rules results in data entry errors and incomplete information.
• Capturing risk and compliance data in various forms & spreadsheets leads to problems such as copy-and-paste errors, overwritten data, and incomplete fields.
• Disparate enterprise GRC data stored in disconnected spreadsheets creates substandard risk data and an ambiguous risk framework, generating misleading reporting outputs that lead to poor decision-making.
• Relying on manual processes without automation slows down the resolution of risk events, allowing risks to escalate to intolerable levels.
• Siloed processes and dispersed data sources make it difficult to link risks to the relevant controls, policies, and procedures to understand their correlations.
• Large firms struggle to compare risks across different buildings due to multiple risk frameworks and siloed data, making it challenging to make risk-based decisions across departments and sites.

• Data migration – importing your existing GRC data into a new GRC tool can be a challenge if the existing data quality is low – try cleaning up your data before import to ensure only high-quality accurate data with completed fields in the correct format is imported.
• Cultural resilience – Implementing a GRC tool can be a huge change for an organization and its stakeholders and staff. Be sure to engage stakeholders early in the process to get them on board and ensure the tool will work in a way that benefits them with minimum impact to their daily role.
• User adoption – Training is key to ensure the GRC platform is adopted and widely used – this will ensure users are entering accurate information – providing top quality risk data to support data-driven decision-making.
• Security & privacy concerns – Bring your IT team into the procurement process to ensure they are on board and look for GRC tools that are certified to ISO 27001, SOC Type 1 & 2, and Cyber Essentials– providing adequate security assurance. Ensure the platform offers sufficient access controls and user permissions settings to restrict access to data when needed.
• Integration with other systems & data sources – GRC solutions often need to integrate with your other systems & data sources to pull vital data into the platform to monitor risk levels in real time. Look for tools with ‘API libraries’ that have experience integrating with multiple systems to ensure the platform you select will integrate with your current and future systems.
• Cost – A GRC tool will likely cost more than using manual processes like spreadsheets and email so be sure to demonstrate how the platform will generate cost savings & efficiencies upon implementation in your business case.