The internal dependencies between corporate governance policies, regulatory compliance, and enterprise risk management programs must be managed. As a solution, organizations adopt governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) strategy.   

GRC strategy mainly helps organizations in a better way and allows the organization to act ethically. Let's understand this better.

 

Governance, Risk, and Compliance Interpretation

 

GRC mainly stands for Governance, Risk, and Compliance. This powerful GRC Acronym was invented by the OCEG, which stands for "Open Compliance and Ethics Group." 

 

According to OCEG, "GRC is the integrated collection of capabilities that enable an organization to achieve objectives reliably, address uncertainty, and act with integrity."   

 

To make it simpler, GRC is a strategy aimed at: 

  • Aligning the IT process with its business goals 
  • Ensure that risks are managed and mitigated 
  • Ensuring all the actions are compliant with the set of policies and procedures 

Since we frequently discuss governance, risk, and compliance. It is time to comprehend the meanings of governance, risk, and compliance. 

  • Governance: It archives the objectives 
  • Risk: It addresses the uncertainty  
  • Compliance: It acts with integrity 

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The story that helps comprehend the GRC

 

To deal with this question, let's understand the importance of GRC with a small story.

 

Imagine that you have a perfect idea of doing business. Let's consider the example of creating one exciting application which will be very useful worldwide. As a businessman or app creator, you are prepared for the app and want to start a new start-up organization. You would be working alone on the initial day to grow that start-up. One fine day your app will get higher demand in the market, and you will be invited by one of the great clients, "X," to enhance that app and provide it to them.

 

Being the happiest person, you will start hiring a few people and work on that app. Your demand increases; hence your hiring continues. You will employ many developers, executives, sales, HRs, etc., to grow your organization and provide your best product to the client. Your success continues, and all your client's productivity also increases because of your application.

 

But let us say that one fine day, your organization is hit by a cyber-attack. It exploits the codes, which renders your service by more significant days and causes the massive leakage of client data. All the efforts that you have put in will come down, clients will become unhappy, and they may even cancel your contract. All the employees that were hired will be put into trouble. They may not get a salary, which impacts their future.  

 

With this above incident, what comes to our mind?? Yes, the thing that came into your mind is correct; it's because of the lack of GRC in the organization. If we predict the GRC assessment, we can end up with the below points.  

 

  • No policy for secure development.  
  • Developers lack a clear understanding of what is anticipated due to the lack of policy. A study of the code demonstrates that only a small percentage of developers adhere to secure development techniques. 
  • Top management was unaware of the hazards involved in the wage payment for unforeseen circumstances as no risk assessment was done for it.

 

And this list continues. So, with this, we all understand that GRC is very important for any organization. When we know the importance of GRC, we will have to consider how it can be adopted with the solution and what is the best platform for it.

So far, I know the best platform to adopt the GRC solution is ServiceNow. Adopting GRC in ServiceNow will be supportive to the customers and beneficial.

Read More: GRC & Its Statistical Importance for Organization

Paybacks of Using ServiceNow GRC Solution

 

Spreadsheets are used by many firms, which slows down the Governance, Risk, and Compliance process and causes errors, duplication, and inconsistencies. It can be solved with the ServiceNow GRC application. The following are some advantages that firms can obtain by deploying ServiceNow GRC:

Real-time monitoring or observations: Firms can monitor their risk and compliance position in real-time with ServiceNow GRC. This enables them to discover possible faults or gaps in their processes immediately and take corrective action before they become larger problems. 

Create a risk register and automate risk assessments: Firms can use ServiceNow GRC to build a complete risk register covering all their essential assets, processes, and systems. It can also automate the risk assessment process, making it more efficient and precise. 

Manage risk in advance: With ServiceNow GRC, firms can proactively manage risks by identifying and dealing with issues before they become significant problems. This helps to avoid any negative consequences for the business and guarantees that the organization is always ready to respond to any potential challenges.

Manage compliance related to law/regulation/standard/policy: ServiceNow GRC assists businesses in managing compliance with numerous laws, rules, standards, and policies. It ensures that the organization always complies with all applicable rules and regulations, lowering the risk of non-compliance penalties. 

Assess vendor risks: It can also be used to assess the risks associated with third-party vendors. This helps firms to identify potential risks and take appropriate measures to mitigate them. 

Testing framework: It provides a framework for testing compliance controls and governance processes.  

Mitigate risk: ServiceNow GRC allows firms to use controls to reduce the impact or likelihood of hazards caused by any GRC issue.

Paybacks of Using ServiceNow GRC Solution

Total economic impact of the ServiceNow GRC

 

The White paper on the Total economic impact of ServiceNow GRC says that with the adoption of ServiceNow, there was a lot of economic impact on the industries. It helped a lot of different organizations with their productivity. Here are the few effects I am listing and making you all understand.  

  • Customers that moved to ServiceNow from spreadsheet-based GRC solutions were able to additionally increase GRC FTE (Full-time equivalent) efficiency by 25% upwards on top of automation increase.  
  • The survey identified that vendor risk assessment, which used to take 45 days, got reduced to 15 days post the implantation of GRC in the organizations.  
  • As per the survey, it would take days or even weeks to produce any insight, but now everyone in senior management has rapid access to transparency and reporting.  
  • It was identified that the automation characteristics of the solution increased GRC staff efficiency by as much as 50%.  

Considering all these aspects, using ServiceNow for the GRC solution is one of the best practices. Of course, making the best use of it will bring proficiency to the companies. 

Read More: Skills Required for ServiceNow Developer

Conclusion


In conclusion, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) strategy helps organizations achieve objectives reliably, address uncertainty, and act with integrity. The lack of GRC in an organization can lead to negative consequences like cyber-attacks and data leaks. Using ServiceNow GRC can provide real-time monitoring, automate risk assessments, manage compliance, assess vendor risks, and utilize controls to mitigate hazards. With inMorphis + ServiceNow, you can leave GRC implementation to the experts. That said, if you are wondering about the possible pitfalls of GRC implementation, you can click here to learn more.