For the past two years Archer Technologies has been a disruptive force in the GRC market. They have been going strong in the IT/information security segment of GRC for several years – but the past two years has shown them to be a formidable competitor in what is referred to as the enterprise GRC (eGRC) market.

The following is an abstract from my latest research piece “Enhancing Business Performance through Risk Management“

While the market seems eager to grasp onto the phrase “risk intelligence,” it means nothing if corporations cannot take action on the intelligence it provides. Being intelligent is not the same as being wise – most organizations lack both risk intelligence and wisdom. There are organizations that acquire a lot of information, but without transforming this information into knowledge by understanding the context of their business risks, they fail to make better business decisions. Risk is often completely disconnected from business strategy, objective, and performance management.

Risk management requires the proper context across the entire culture of an organization. The only way an organization can manage risk appropriately is if acceptable and unacceptable risk tolerances and appetites are defined and managed. The culture of risk tolerance at all levels helps formulate these tolerances: This is where risk management relies on governance. The board and management must clearly define and communicate the organization’s culture of confronting risk. If the governance function does not do this, risk strategy is left up to individuals and the integrity of the organization is in jeopardy.

A mature risk-management program does not operate in isolation from the business. A mature risk-management program is integrated with corporate performance, strategy, and objective management. This requires that the organization relate performance to risk, allows for multiple inputs impacting the risk environment from both internal and external contexts, and has a variety of ways to look at risk information to analyze, model, and relate risk back to performance and strategy.

Effective and mature risk management delivers:

• Alignment of risk in the context of business strategy. Risk strategy is fully integrated with business strategy where business management realizes risk management is an integral part of business responsibilities.
• Risk intelligent business decision-making. Risk-management culture and policies are effectively applied across the organization, supported by management. The business has what they need to make risk-intelligent business decisions.
• Risk-based business planning. Risk is a key component in business planning. Risk assessments and reports are structured to complement the lifecycle of the business to help executives and the board make effective decisions.
• Establishment of risk culture and policy. Risk policy is clearly communicated across the business and is effective at establishing a culture of risk management. Risk policies are current, reviewed and audited on a regular basis.
• A risk appetite harmonized with business strategy. Risk appetite and tolerance levels are established and reviewed. They are mapped over to business performance and objectives.
• Integration of risk and performance monitoring and metrics. Defined KRIs are in place and appropriate mapped to business KPIs. Risk indicators have established limits/thresholds, and are defined at all levels of the business, its operations, and relationships.
• Communication of business relevant risk information. Risk reporting and indicators are relevant to the business and effectively communicated. Risk information adheres to information quality, integrity, relevance, and timeliness to the business.
• Ownership of risk within the business. Every risk, both at the enterprise as well as business process level, has clearly established risk owners. These owners represent roles that can take action on the risk.
• Holistic awareness of the range of risks the organization faces. The organization has defined risk taxonomy at the enterprise level which drills down into specific risk areas. A regular process is in place for risk identification to keep the taxonomy current. Various risk frameworks used across the enterprise are harmonized into an enterprise risk framework.
• Multi-perspective risk analysis. The organization uses a range of risk correlation, stress testing, and scenario analysis. Various qualitative and quantitative risk analysis techniques are in place and the organization has an understanding of its historical loss to feed into analysis.
• Effective risk treatment in context of business objectives and strategy. Risk treatment plans – whether acceptance, avoidance, mitigation, or transfer – are in place and monitored for progress. Audit functions conduct regular reviews. The solution reviews risk-treatment plans.
• Governance of risk from the board down into the business. The organization has a role and system in place to aggregate risk information across the business and effectively communicate, monitor, and manage risk. There is effective communication and accountability for risk oversight at the board of director’s level.
• Visibility of risk as it relates to performance and strategy across the business. An enterprise view of risk is in place and maps over to corporate performance and strategy. Risk is effectively communicated to stakeholders and the organizations track record shows successful taking and management of risk.
  Consistent ranking and measurement of risk. Risk is categorized and structured according to its impact on business strategy, performance, and optimization.

Successful organizations face the challenge to move from immature to mature approaches to risk management. Immature risk-management programs operate in silos and are disconnected from each other: no consistency or efficiency is gained. Many ERM programs are not much better than this, as they are nothing more than an enhanced SOX strategy, focusing on a slightly expanded view of financial and other internal controls. A mature risk-management program is a seamless part of business performance, strategy, and objective management. Risk must be managed within the context of business. This requires the organization to take a top-down view of risk led by the executives and board, and make it part of the fabric of business, not an unattached layer of oversight.

Over the past few weeks we have looked at both theinformation model and the enterprise application core of Corporate Integrity’s GRC Reference Architecture. The GRC Reference Architecture provides the framework to approach technology, classify software offerings, and is part of my broader GRC EcoSystem (which includes over 1300 technology, professional service, and information providers). The GRC Reference Architecture represents the core to the revisions to the OCEG GRC IT Blueprint to be released by the end of this year. Your feedback is appreciated.

We now turn to the next component of the GRC Reference Architecture – the business role/function specific applications. These are the applications that are predominantly focused to meet the needs of a specific business function, process, or role in the enterprise. Applications in this area may very well have significant risk and compliance relevance as well as impact on the enterprise – but they are 80% or more used to a specific subset of GRC user roles. The enterprise application core that we previously discussed represents applications that span GRC business users/roles across the business.

The various business roles and functions that have specific uses of GRC technologies and applications are scattered across the enterprise. In one sense, every part of the business touches on GRC as it relates to different aspects of performance, risk, compliance, values, and control.

The primary, but not all inclusive, business function/role application categories include:

• Audit. While audit is a broader part of the enterprise application core of GRC, audit also maintains its own category of role specific applications dealing with assurance, audit management (e.g., calendaring, resource scheduling, work paper management), as well as audit analytics and automation.

• Brand & Reputation Management. This category offers targeted solutions for management the corporation’s brand and reputation – in both the physical world as well as online. This includes brand surveillance management.

• Business Continuity. From disaster recovery, business continuity, as well as crisis management – all are very relevant to GRC and are solutions that enterprises need to manage and maintain continuity of operations across the business.

• Business Operations (line of business). The line of business is the front line of GRC. From management of global trade compliance, procurement management, to customer relationship management . . . many aspects of business transactions, interactions, and relationships have relevance to GRC.

• Corporate Compliance & Ethics. Within corporate compliance and ethics there are solutions aimed at communicating code of conduct, delivering compliance training, as well as whistleblower reporting through hotline/helpline systems.

• Corporate Secretary. Board and entity management software is the primary vehicle for the corporate secretary role to carry out the function of managing board papers, communications, calendars, and corporate reporting.

• Corporate Social Responsibility/Sustainability. CSR is a burgeoning and growing field becoming increasingly relevant to organizations around the world. Solutions in this category aim to help monitor emissions and carbon tracking, as well as offering broader GRI (Global Reporting Index) reporting.

• Environmental, Health, & Safety. EH&S software helps the organization manage and maintain environmental controls as well as the health and safety of individual employees, partners, and clients. Solutions in this space have many offerings from areas like environmental monitoring and reporting to MSDS management.

• Finance & Accounting. The finance and accounting function focuses on using software to manage risk and compliance within business financial transactions, validates that the organization is managing finance and budgets within boundaries, and monitors finance and treasury risk management. This entire area is often referred to as Finance-GRC.

• Fraud. The area of fraud management utilizes software for fraud investigations, fraud prevention/management, as well as specific areas such as anti-money laundering.

• Human Resources. HR issues from hiring practices, discrimination, harassment, wage & hour, compensation, employee privacy, and other areas often carry some of the most significant risk and compliance risks the organization face. While broad HRMS systems have much relevance to GRC, there are specific areas of software that HR leverages to help communicate and prevent issues of risk and compliance such as employee evaluations and surveys, as well as learning/training management solutions.

• Information Security, Risk, & Compliance. What is often referred to as IT-GRC represents the most expansive domain of software solutions aimed at managing technology and information risk and compliance. This includes areas of threat and vulnerability management, configuration management, identity and access management, encryption, and many other components.

• Insurance. The role focused on managing insurance and claims management has software specifically aimed to support its function in GRC.

• Investigations. Part of the broader enterprise GRC application core as well, investigations management software enables the organization to consistently and efficiently intake issues, manage investigations, and record and manage loss across the organization.

• Legal. The legal department has a variety of technology solutions aimed at supporting the legal role in areas such as matter management, contract management, discovery management, and the management and protection of intellectual property. The terms Legal-GRC and legal process management are starting to be used to identify solutions that bring these components together.

• Physical Security. Physical security is dependant on many areas of technology for surveillance and physical access systems to protect the organization, and in some areas to comply with laws and regulations.

• Privacy. A variety of solutions have come to the market specifically aimed at managing privacy programs. These include software focused on information protection, privacy policy communication and training, to incident response and managing disclosure requirements.

• Quality Management. Quality management systems provide a backbone of managing quality within the line of business – while monitoring and resolving quality and control issues.

• Risk Management. Risk is a fundamental core to GRC but also has a variety of business roles across the organization. From enterprise risk management software, down into the bowels of many components of operational, geo-political, and financial and treasury risk management software – there are solutions aimed at meet
  ing a variety of specific risk needs.

• Third-Party/Supply-Chain Management. Risk and compliance issues do not start at the traditional corporate boundaries but carry on to a complex web of business partner and supply chain relationships. Solutions in 3rd party management aim to communicate code of conduct and policies while managing and monitoring risks, compliance, and controls across extended business relationships.

These roles represent a significant but not exhaustive look at the categories of risk and compliance software solutions targeted at specific areas of the business. These applications need to be able to report and feed information into broader GRC reporting systems and dashboards to maintain a 360 degree view of GRC throughout the business. All are very relevant and part of a broad GRC strategy.

Further, the discussion and breadth of GRC business/function roles and supporting technologies underline the fact that GRC is a federated effort. There is not one group of the organization that does GRC. While there may be a role leading the collaboration, it really extends throughout the business.

Over the next few weeks we will wrap up the initial discussions on the GRC Reference Architecture. The next posting will provide commentary on the geographic and industry specific views of GRC technology, and the final one will look at the technology components/capabilities that GRC solutions are comprised of.

Detailed training on the GRC Reference Architecture can be found in Corporate Integrity & OCEG’s GRC Strategy & Technology Bootcamps.

Friend,

Last week we began our presentation of the GRC Reference Architecture, which is part of my broader GRC EcoSystem (which includes over 1300 technology, professional service, and information providers). The GRC Reference Architecture is the core to the revisions to the OCEG GRC IT Blueprint – for those of you interested in the OCEG Technology Council we will be reviewing this architecture, the changes to the GRC IT Blueprint, and upcoming projects via a 2 hour web conference on November 13th (contact me as I chair the OCEG Technology Council).

The GRC Reference Architecture is comprised of: information model/framework, enterprise core GRC application(s), role/business function specific applications, as well as industry and geographic/jurisdiction specific applications.

In the previous posting we looked at the heart of the enterprise GRC information model and framework. This provided a high-level conceptual on the different data areas that interrelate with each other to form the enterprise core of GRC. The core of the GRC Information Model and Framework relates core GRC libraries of information across the organization, including the objective, risk, control, event, responsibility, policy, requirement, and enterprise (business model) libraries.

This week I provide the outline of the enterprise GRC core applications that interact, share, and leverage the information model to deliver sustainable, consistent, efficient, transparent, and accountable GRC processes. To be an application at the enterprise core of GRC requires that the application be used across the business as a platform that touches and interacts with a variety of business roles and information. This provides the foundational application(s) that make deliver on the GRC philosophy of a common architecture and collaboration across business roles and interests.

There are dozens of application categories that fall outside of the enterprise GRC application core – those are the ones that are focused on specific business roles and functions (e.g., quality, EH&S, matter management). We will look at a framework for those next week.

The enterprise GRC application core consists of the following applications:

• Strategy, Performance, & Objective Management. This is the missing application link of GRC. So many GRC applications focus on the downside – avoiding the bad – that it fails to relate to the upside of why organizations take risk and maintain control: business performance and optimization. Governance is about directing the organization on a specific course, risk is taken to achieve objectives, and compliance is there to stay within boundaries so the organization does not get off course. A successful GRC application is going to integrate business strategy, performance, and objective management to provide context to risks, controls, policies, and assurance. GRC applications need to be a fundamental part of corporate performance management systems.

• Risk Management. Risk management applications come in all shapes and sizes. Most are very niche focusing on specific business risk areas such as market, commodity, security, and other risk areas. However, at the enterprise GRC core is the application that brings all the silos of risk scattered across the business together to form the foundation of an enterprise risk management (ERM) system). This is the system that defines the organizations risk library (risk taxonomy) and is the central system for doing risk assessments/surveys, identification, analysis, treatment, ownership, modeling, and monitoring of risks across the enterprise. The risk management system interacts with corporate performance systems to map key risk indicators to key performance indicators. It provides the consistent engine to communicate and assess risk across the business.

• Audit & Assurance Management. The role of audit is central to GRC. While audit and assurance management can easily fit into a specific business function/role application used by internal audit, it is necessary that it be part of the enterprise GRC core. Audit interacts with all parts of the business (at least it should) to provide assurance that the organization is staying within the boundaries of policies and control that management has defined. The audit management platform becomes core to GRC as it provides audits to all aspects of the business and its relationships and gives other business roles a place to interact and comment on their thoughts to audit findings. The audit management platform delivers resource scheduling, calendaring, work paper management within a consistent application and framework. Audit management systems should leverage and use the same information libraries of risks, controls, policies, objectives, and even events that other GRC roles are using as part of the audit process.

• Event & Case Management. It is unfortunate – organizations are in a complete disarray of how they manage investigations, issues, incidents, events, cases (or whatever other synonym that works best for your business area). As a result the organization lacks any good source of understanding losses and issues across the organization. An organization cannot do good risk management if it does not know what the history of losses and materialized risks have been. Events also trigger where policies are ineffective, out of date, or not understood. They also identify where controls are not working – or where further controls are warranted. Organizations need a central library of managing events and cases across the enterprise. This application area focuses on consistent documentation and management of events – from reporting, to managing and documenting the investigation, to recording the loss and business impact. NOTE: I am working on a published research piece to be available in December on Event & Case Management systems which will provide an overview of several applications in this space.

• Policy & Procedure Management. Similar to Event & Case Management, how organizations manage policies and procedures is out of date and ineffective. Organizations are quick to drop policies into a SharePoint site where they have no management in place to govern them. In my policy & procedure audits I have found organizations with dozens of policy publication sites and manuals. Many with out of date policies that lack policy owners and have not been reviewed for meeting the organizations needs in years. Further they are often written with different language and formats – without a thought to a corporate standard for style and language. When you ask about policy exceptions – the organization has no idea how many have been granted. Policy management and communication is a core area of defining corporate culture and values, it is also where the company can quickly get in legal and regulatory turmoil if done in an ad hoc manner. Organizations need policy management systems to manage the lifecycle of policies from ownership, development, approval, communication, exception management, periodic maintenance, and archiving. Part of this involves the ability for any role in the organization to login and see which policies relate to their job, what policy
  training and attestations are required, and what testing/quizzing needs to be done. In the day of YouTube I am seeing demand to deliver policies and associated training within the same environment – particularly as more and more laws are being written that require training and understanding of requirements and compliance. Policies relate back to risks as they establish the risk culture and tolerance of the organization, they relate to helping the organization meet objectives by staying within boundaries of control, they relate back to events which identify where policies have been violated . . . you get the picture. NOTE: I will be approaching a published research piece on the components and vendors delivering Next Generation Policy & Procedure Management in February.

• Compliance Management. Compliance is a confusing word as it has different meanings and connotations (as with Risk and Governance). Elements of compliance management can be found in all of the other application areas – policy and event management are both central to a good compliance program. This particular domain of compliance management is the assessment engine to deliver surveys and self-assessments across the business and its relationships to understand and report on the state of compliance and control within the organization. It links to the policy and control libraries to build compliance assessments and delivers these to the business in a consistent interface across the organization. It is separate from audit management as audits are the independent validator of compliance while the compliance management application is management’s tool to make sure it is staying within mandated and voluntary boundaries of control.

• Control Monitoring, Automation, & Enforcement. Related to compliance management is the world of compliance and control automation. The goal of this suite of GRC applications is automate the validation and enforcement of controls within business processes, systems, and information. This encompasses an array of solutions that deliver control monitoring, automation and enforcement across business transactions, configurations of business systems and applications, segregation of duties, and validation of master data records. While many applications in this space have been focused in niche areas (e.g., SOX SoD), Corporate Integrity is seeing growth and expansion of this technology to be enterprise applications across risk and compliance areas.

• GRC Dashboards, Reporting, Analytics, & Modeling. It is this area that provides the reporting glue across GRC domains. The GRC enterprise application core requires a central hub that integrates all of the information into a common interface to deliver metrics, dashboarding, reporting, and measurement of GRC activities across the business. It is here the organization looks to deliver the command and control center for GRC activities.

The enterprise GRC application core provides the foundation of GRC across the business. All of the applications referenced are ones that can be leveraged from one side of the business to the other – providing a consistent approach to GRC across silos of risk and compliance. However, there are a variety of business functions and roles that have their specific needs that demand applications aimed for their business function. Next week we will take a look at the application categories aimed at specific business roles and functions that plug into the broader GRC Reference Architecture.

Detailed training on the GRC Reference Architecture can be found in Corporate Integrity & OCEG’s GRC Strategy & Technology Bootcamps.

GRC – Governance, Risk, & Compliance. Whether you use this specific acronym or not the fact is your organization does GRC. There is not a single executive that will tell you that they lack corporate governance, do not manage risk, and completely ignore compliance. The truth of the matter: GRC has been a part of business since the dawn of business.

GRC is akin to CRM (Customer/Client Relationship Management) in the 1980’s. Before CRM systems and processes entered the organization client information and relationships were still being managed. The challenge was that they were being managed in scattered silos that ended up with inconsistent and redundant data with no view into the entire profile of the client and its interaction with the business. CRM systems entered the picture to create a single view of customer information and interactions across business processes and roles. GRC systems and processes aim to achieve the same thing – to provide an integrated picture of governance, risk, and compliance information and processes across the business. To accomplish an integrated view of GRC requires the establishment of a GRC business process and technology architecture.

In the next several newsletters I am focusing on the communication of Corporate Integrity’s GRC Reference Architecture. This GRC Reference Architecture is party of my broader GRC EcoSystem of technology, consultants, and information providers (over 1300 firms cataloged to date). It is also the foundation of the revisions going into OCEG’s GRC IT Blueprint.

The GRC Reference Architecture is comprised of: a data architecture/framework, enterprise core GRC application(s), role/business function specific applications, as well as industry and geographic/jurisdiction specific applications.

This week we look at the information foundation (from a high-level) in the Enterprise GRC Data Architecture & Framework. A firm foundation is necessary to build extensible and agile GRC system and processes.

Intricate relationships between different information the heart of a successful GRC technology strategy. When I was in grade school I loved it when the teacher had us draw points around a circle and draw lines connected to every other point resulting in a beautiful geometric pattern that captivated the eye. The same visual represents the many to many relationships of GRC information. If you think about it – policies, risks, controls, events, requirements, enterprise assets/processes, responsibilities, and objectives all map to each other. Organizations need to know what policies set management thresholds for specific risks; what events happened that violated specific policies, materialized risk, and caused an infraction of a regulatory requirement; what controls are established in specific policies and defined to control what risks; which business objectives are risks related to and how do we monitor controls to stay within acceptable tolerance levels of risk while aiming for that objective.

The core of a GRC Data Architecture and Framework integrates the following libraries of information within the organization:

• Objective library. This is often the missing piece of GRC. Most GRC strategies are focused on meeting requirements and putting out fires of risk. However, governance starts with understanding corporate performance, business strategy, and objective management. A good GRC system will define business objectives and cross-reference those to risks, requirements, and other areas of GRC.

• Risk library. The problem with risk management is that it often happens in silos and there is no aggregate view of risk. Organizations need a consistent data framework to define, manage, and monitor risks. This requires that risks be mapped to objectives but also to other elements such as controls implemented to treat risks, events that show where risk has materialized, responsibilities to define risk owners, as well as policies used to establish and set thresholds of risk.

• Control library. Controls establish the fundamental building blocks of a GRC program. They aim to make sure the organization is staying within boundaries of risk and compliance while allowing the organization to pursue its objectives. Controls are in place to protect the organization. A good GRC system will allow for the cross referencing of controls to business objectives, risks, events (control failures/weaknesses), policies, regulatory requirements, as well as the business environment of processes and assets.

• Event library. Whether called cases, events, incidents, issues, investigations . . . the organization aiming for an integrated and efficient GRC system will need a common repository of events and losses that have impacted the organization. This starts with the recording of an event, the documentation on investigation and response, to allocating loss information that feeds into risk models. Events document policies that were violated, actions took, control issues/weaknesses, responsible parties as well as what part of the organization was impacted.

• Responsibility library. Every business objective, risk, policy, requirement, business asset has something in common – an owner. Businesses get into a world of hurt when they do not know who is responsible for what policy, risk, regulatory requirement, etc. Defining ownership of the components of GRC is essential to a successful risk and compliance strategy.

• Policy and procedure library. Policies set the boundaries of the organization – they establish the expected/required behavior of individuals, systems, processes, and relationships within business. At the highest level they articulate values and code of conduct, at the detailed level they tell you exactly where boundaries lie. Policies map to risks to establish risk culture, tolerance, and appetite; they map to events where an organization can see where policies have been violated; they map to controls as specific statements within policies often are the control statements themselves; they map to requirements to meet specific boundaries set forth by regulators; and they also map to the enterprise as policies govern everything from the entire business (e.g., code of conduct) to specific business operations/processes.

• Requirement library. The focus of GRC is to stay within boundaries while achieving business objectives. A central store of requirements from regulators, laws, code of conduct, ethics, values, social responsibility, contracts . . . allows the organization to document what it has to be compliant to. This enables the mapping of requirements to policies, risks, controls, business objectives, enterprise assets/processes, as well as events that identify where a requirement has been missed.

• Enterprise library. No matter what area of GRC information you are looking at it applies to something in the organization. It can apply to the whole organization such as a code of conduct, or a specific business unit, process, entity, business relationship, employee/role, or event information category itself. Organizations that successfully approach GRC have established enterprise modeling to relate objectives, risks, controls, events, policies, responsibilities, and requirements to the business.

Illustration: last week I was discussing the role of GRC applications and information and how they integrate with a global professional services firm looking to implement a GRC strategy and solution to govern their internal operations. They asked – “We have been using Sharepoi
nt for policy management, does this need to be part of the GRC system?” My reaction was that this the approach many organizations take but challenged them to consider the intricacies of this approach which would handicap their GRC strategy. These included challenging them if they have a central and authoritative repository of all policies? Do they have a way to manage the lifecycle of policies from authorship, approval, communication, regular/periodic maintenance, training, attestation, and archiving of policies? Do they have a way to track exceptions to policies? More specifically to the relationship of policy information – can they map policies back to regulatory requirements, risks, controls, business objectives, as well as the events/investigations in which policies were violated? It was at this point they saw the picture of why an integrated GRC system adds value across the business silos of risk and compliance that have gone in different directions in the past.

This is just a high-level view of the core data components of a GRC architecture. Next week I will publish the core enterprise GRC applications that leverage this data. Detailed training on the GRC Reference Architecture can be found in Corporate Integrity & OCEG’s GRC Strategy & Technology Bootcamps.

From the SCCE:

In the recent Corporate Integrity Agreement between Pfizer and the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, Pfizer agreed that its Chief Compliance Officer will report directly to the CEO; will neither be nor be subordinate to the General Counsel or CFO; and will make periodic reports to the Audit Committee of the Board. Does it negatively impact a compliance program when the GC is also the head of ethics and compliance? To whom should the chief compliance and ethics officer report? And how can a company create the right level of independence for the compliance function?

In order to gather valuable benchmarking data for our members, the SCCE has compiled 9 short questions regarding compliance officer positioning. Please take a minute to answer the survey, then check back to view the valuable benchmarking data. Thanks very much for your participation and your important contribution to compliance and ethics benchmarking research.

Thank you very much for providing your valuable input.
http://scce.informz.net/z/cjUucD9taT00OTEzMTImcD0xJnU9MTAwNzkwOTEwOCZsaT0xODExMTE4/index.html

Besides taking the survey – please post your comment on this LinkedIN group.

Success in today’s dynamic business environment requires the organization to integrate, build, and support business process with an enterprise view of risk and compliance.Without a new approach to risk and compliance, the scattered and non-integrated risk and compliance approaches of the past fail and introduce greater risk and regulatory threats to the business.A sustainable enterprise view of risk and compliance is one in which accountability is effectively managed and the business has a complete system of record – providing visibility to assess across a multiplicity of risk and compliance issues. This is supported today by technology that allows for the direct integration of controls within business systems to prevent and/or detect unwanted behavior. Business now requires that governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) controls be integrated into business processes, systems, and applications.

With new risk and compliance issues constantly coming to bear, organizations need to tackle the problem at its roots.Instead of treating each risk and compliance issue as an individual problem (as they have in the past), organizations need to define a common process and technology architecture to manage risk and compliance across the range of issues faced.

The old paradigm of managing risk and compliance is a recipe for disaster. Organizations have been reactive as they used manual or point solutions for risk and compliance while being extremely fragmented in managing risk and compliance as individual efforts that do not relate to a broader risk and compliance. A reactive approach to risk and compliance leads to siloed initiatives that never see the big picture.The result is complexity, redundancy, and failure.The organization is not thinking how controls and processes can be architected to meet a range of risk and compliance needs – NOR do they gain an understanding on how risk management and compliance control impact corporate performance.An ad hoc approach to GRC results in poor visibility across the organization and its control environment, as there is no framework or architecture for managing risk and compliance as an integrated part of business.

What may seem like an insignificant risk in one part of the organization may very well have a different appearance when other risks are factored into its relationship and impact.Organizations face out-of-sync controls and corporate policies that are inadequate to manage risk and compliance. Organizations fail and are encumbered by unnecessary complexity because they manage requirements, risks, and controls within specific issues and do not look to see how a common integrated framework and architecture can bring efficiency to GRC processes. Further, executives are becoming aware of these redundant risk and compliance projects from different parts of the organizations wasting company time and resources with manual and laborious assessments that fail to leverage technology and information.

Modern business requires a new paradigm in tackling risk and compliance issues across the enterprise.No longer can organizations afford to focus on single risk and compliance issues as unrelated projects and assessment, nor can they allow software band-aids to masquerade as GRC that is not integrated into business systems.A targeted strategy addressing GRC requirements through common processes and integration into enterprise applications gets to the root of the problem. The risk and compliance complexity in today’s business requires a common strategy and architecture to effectively manage GRC. GRC is a three-legged stool:governance, risk, and compliance oversight are each individual but interrelated necessary components for effectively managing and directing an organization. In summary – good governance is built upon diligent risk and compliance management processes.

GRC solutions that operate autonomously from business processes introduce further risk in today’s complex and distributed business environment.Organizations require an enterprise view of GRC that not only brings together silos of risk and compliance, but integrates them into the enterprise process and application fabric of the business.

In today’s business environment, ignoring an integrated view of GRC results in business processes, partners, employees, and systems that behave like leaves blowing in the wind. Organizations face a complex array of risk and compliance demands impacting business. The more extended and distributed the business – the more challenging risk and compliance is to manage. An integrated GRC architecture aligns them to be efficient and manageable. Inefficiencies, redundancy, errors, and potential risks can be identified, averted, or contained.This reduces risk exposure of the organization and enhances business agility and performance.

Organizations are embracing technology to get away from document centric approaches to GRC that are based on paper, electronic documents, and spreadsheets.Organizations require a GRC architecture that can expand and contract to ever changing business initiatives over time.However, the first generation of GRC solutions have often been limited as they end up being a band-aid to replace spreadsheets and lack true integration into the enterprise application fabric and business processes. A primary consideration is the flexibility of the GRC architecture to enable the identification and resolution of business problems.

Continuously monitoring risk and compliance has become imperative but it’s only cost effective if the organization has a strategic approach to managing controls across risk and compliance initiatives. The business is in an awkward position of reacting to mandates where it should be proactively managing controls and risk.The web of stakeholders with varying risk and compliance requirements appears to introduce a complex tug-of-war with opposing priorities.GRC requirements, risks, and controls have an impact on corporate strategy and performance and need to be monitored as part of an overall corporate performance strategy.

There is significant redundancy in requirements, technologies, and processes across risk and compliance issues impacting the business that can be addressed by a common architecture and process approach to GRC.

Efficiency in risk and compliance processes is achieved through the definition of common processes and integration into the enterprise application environment that different stakeholders can utilize for their individual requirements as well as collaborate and share.A successful GRC strategy is one that has a symbiotic influence on the variety of business stakeholder roles and their common requirements.

Sustainable risk and compliance programs are built upon a common process and technology architecture designed to meet a range of requirements impacting the business.Organizations need to be intelligent about what processes and technologies they deploy – the goal is to define once and comply with many regulations, manage a range of risks, and maximize value from the convergence of technology, people and process.A sustainable approach to GRC results in an organization that is looking to the future and mitigating risk in the course of business as opposed to putting out fires by reacting to risk and control issues as they arise.

Risk and compliance management is complex with numerous individual intricacies and issues ready to frustrate the organization.Organizations that attempt to build a GRC strategy with home-grown solutions, spreadsheets — or islands of technology that do not integrate into the enterprise and processes — are left in the dark and boxed into a view of the world that they will find limiting down the road.

The
case has been laid that the current business environment requires a new paradigm of GRC technology – a platform that spans across the organization and its individual risk and compliance issues, integrates into enterprise applications, becomes an integral part of business processes, brings together a GRC strategy ready to tackle risk and compliance issues at their roots, and is critically linked to corporate performance and strategy.

While comprehensive GRC is much broader than technology – GRC cannot be accomplished without technology.Technology is the foundation of GRC processes and provides the backbone of GRC communication and collaboration.

Getting started on a sustainable GRC strategy requires that the organization get a current assessment of where they are today, what is in place and already deployed, identify redundancies in technology, and find areas that might have been addressed but where the solutions are not scalable or manageable at an enterprise level.The gap analysis is aimed to not only identity the current state but to also help the organization prioritize their roadmap going forward.

One thing is a certain – risk and compliance burdens are not going away.Government regulators continue to influence control upon organization practices through tighter regulation.Business partners are requiring stronger controls within their relationships.The globalization of business introduces significant risk with more points of vulnerability and exposure to the organization.The time is now for organizations to define and implement a sustainable GRC strategy that drives accountability, security, sustainability, consistency, efficiency, and transparency of GRC across the organization.Selecting the right technology vendor that provides the integration and enterprise control of risk and compliance is a critical step that organizations should not take lightly.

This article is an excerpt from my latest written research piece on the topic. Additionally, a corresponding webinar has been posted at OCEG. For those that want the best training on the subject of GRC Strategy and Technology Enablement – see my workshops below. Please comment on this article on the GRC Pundit Blog.

Most GRC software as well as GRC implementations are more like RC (without the G). Or just R or just C. Or perhaps Rc or rC. . .

My position for this discussion – we cannot adequately state we are doing the G in GRC unless we are also taking into account business objectives, strategy, and performance. That is what corporate governance is about. Staying within boundaries for compliance, and managing risk plays into this. But the GRC solutions and initiatives do not really do the G.

Thoughts?

For one thing – that would be too much of an acronym CGRCO. The subject actually came up in a corporate governance discussion group I belong to. Michael Corcoran posted the question “Anybody know of a Chief Governance, Risk And Compliance (GRC) Officer?” and provided a short article in which he was advocating this role.