Helping Executives Understand the Benefits of Effective GRC

Many organizations struggle to keep up with emerging risks in today’s evolving and uncertain business environment. And the consequences of certain risks — such as data breaches — can be dire, both financially and reputationally. The high stakes of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management make a proactive approach essential.

To protect your organization and its objectives, your GRC strategy must include a standardized, integrated technology architecture, which provides the visibility and agility needed to effectively manage risk and compliance.

6 Benefits of Investing in GRC Technology

For many executives, implementing a GRC solution is primarily a financial decision. While costs may be top of mind, GRC technology can drive value in ways that accelerate return on investment, including:

• Saving time by reducing cumbersome manual processes; automating workflows, task management, and reporting; and improving incident response.
• Reducing errors by providing a single source of truth for risk and control data, along with other GRC information. When information management and program oversight are not dependent on spreadsheets and manual data entry, teams can break down silos, avoid duplication, and improve accuracy.
• Improving transparency and accountability for your GRC programs. When all stakeholders use consistent processes and shared data, organizations create one system of record for all GRC management activities. This supports customizable reporting and analysis, audit trails, and actionable risk intelligence for executives and board members.
• Enhancing communication and collaboration between departments and stakeholder groups.
• Reducing costs by demonstrating compliance with pertinent laws and regulations and decreasing the time and effort needed to manage risk and compliance.
• Supporting better decision-making with visibility into risk and compliance issues scattered across the organization and their potential impact on objectives.

Related Reading | The Business Benefits of GRC Integration >

Maturing Your GRC Management Program

Organizations often decide to implement GRC technology when they realize that their manual, document-centric processes…

• Take up too much time and resources
• Can’t keep up with the pace of change
• Result in risks and issues slipping through the cracks

Companies that mature their management processes by adopting a GRC solution have a better chance of protecting business objectives, goals, and interests. They’re also more resilient to disruption and better suited to sustain growth than organizations that manage risk and compliance reactively.

Related Reading | Why Manual GRC Processes Don’t Work >