A GRC software regulates an organisation's processes by finding and managing risks and ensuring they comply with the compliance and risk standards. GRC stands for Governance, Risk, and Compliance.
In current times, businesses are opting to invest in their technology for governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC). It usually to supports its corporate management plan with a unified approach to governing the organisation, spotting, and reducing risks, and complying with the regulatory requirements. It's insurance against disruption to operations in many cases.
A governance, risk and compliance software help manage data flow and accessibility within an organisation. Businesses implement GRC platforms to identify risks, enforce governance and policies, data safety, and track compliance.
A sound GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) strategy gives organisations an integrated view of their enterprise essential to improving performance. Their key focus would be to overcome risks that can hinder the progress of their business. It helps you to create and manage regulatory and internal compliance measures thus improving business quality and providing learning opportunities.
A GRC software can be on-premises, or cloud-based, with zero coding that allows you to have complete
control over your company's activities related to risk and compliance, which increases internal efficiencies.
How does GRC software work?
A Governance, Risk and Compliance Software allows you to report risks in real-time in a centralised platform accessible to all employees as per structure. It is designed to register and track hazards, risks and incidents enable you to track workflows and offer notifications on the legislation and regulation changes.
GRC software provides your company with visibility to information for better quality decision making, faster audit procedures and a real-time reporting system of your risk profile.
Governance
Governance consists of the auditing processes, policies, and rules, assuring corporate activities intended to support business goals. It consists of resource management, ethics, management control, and accountability. These policies can be implemented by the government, legal body, an industry market etc. A risk management program complying with governance is essential for an organisation's success. Governance gives top management the tools to govern, control and influence happenings at the various department levels. They can also check if their work and services are in sync with customers' needs and business goals.
A company implements governance to its policies to offer liability for conduct and results. Executing ethical business practices and corporate citizenship rules can help administer conduct. Good governance determines jobs based on business rank and appraises employees based on results achieved than on responsibilities.
Risk Management
Risk management is an integrated solution that offers businesses a platform to centrally record, analyse and mitigate risks throughout a company's various departments. Risk management involves the employees of an organisation, the technology used, and the various procedures to achieve business goals.
The organisational risks include financial, legal, security, and strategic risks. The employees, as well as processes, implied contribute to the various risks. While lack of staff knowledge on password protection and cyber security causes a threat to the company, inefficient processes and risks at multiple stages can compromise productivity. Hence, enterprises must manage risks and overcome them while ensuring they comply with the latest regulations.
As an organisation experiences growth, including franchising, new sites and company acquisition, the volume of data increases across multiple locations and departments. Thus, tracking work procedures, data and workflow is essential. The ability to report on and mitigate risks manually becomes redundant with a company's growth. A centralised GRC software is the answer to this problem. It has automated controls, and you can report and manage risks that are visible to all. It helps in managing a business as per compliance guidelines.
A risk management program aims to achieve corporate objectives while optimising risk profile and securing value. It aims to share reliable information with the stakeholders while meeting their expectations. It must be contractual, legal, ethical, and social goals while assessing new technology-based regulations.
Continuous Risk assessments will protect businesses from uncertainty, reduce costs, and offer success and longevity.
Compliance
Compliance involves companies adhering to the government's policies, rules, laws, and standards. Failing to do so could cost an enterprise in terms of poor performance, costly mistakes, fines, penalties, and lawsuits.
An organisation must implement a compliance program based on creating, distributing, updating, and tracking compliance policies and training employees about them.
To implement a compliance program, companies shall analyse risk posing areas to assign resources. Only then, the policies should be developed, communicated, and implemented to the staff to address those risk areas. A standard guide should be created and shared with employees and vendors to make it easy for them to understand the compliance policies.
Benefits of GRC Software
GRC tools offer considerable benefits to businesses implementing them. The right GRC software can provide an enterprise with a preventative strategy to secure their company.
A robust Governance, Risk and Compliance Software (GRC) provides a central platform for organisations to regulate their governance, risk management, and compliance strategy across the company. It also helps regulate independent silos, which might amount to risks and impact the overall growth of the enterprise.
A GRC software makes businesses capable of making informed, quick decisions. They can reduce the time invested in audit cycles with the help of automated controls, thus promoting efficiency and reduction in the cost incurred on lengthy audits.
GRC software can spot security as well as compliance risk harming an organisation. With the help of GRC software, companies can have the governance, risk, and compliance procedures essential for their company's long-term continuity.
Below listed are the benefits of GRC software:
- Speedy risk analysis, prevention, and reporting.
- It saves time invested in going through multiple spreadsheets.
- Elevates business reputation and value.
- More automated controls that promote efficiency.
- Offers visibility.
- Short audit cycles.
- Reduction in the compliance cost.
- Provides real-time notification on changes in the law and regulations.
- Spots exceptions to reduce damage quickly.
Integrated Risk management (IRM)
Integrated risk management (IRM) is a group of processes supported by a risk-aware culture and enabling technologies that improve decision-making and performance through an integrated view of how well an organization manages its unique risks.
Top features to look out for in GRC software
A GRC software must have centralised, automated controls, be flexible and scalable and support future standards. It should have customisable reporting and task delegation.
We have described the top features of a GRC software as given below:
Content Creation & Document Management:
It must help users create, track, and store data in digital formats.
Risk analysis:
The software must allow users to access controls to assess them for risks and be able to predict and mitigate them. It should also provide solutions to overcome risks and enhance the process of risk mitigation.
Central dashboard
It offers a centralised dashboard with customisable metrics to provide visibility on GRC performance throughout the organization. All users can see GRC updates except for certain departments with limited access.
Audit management
This feature intends and assists users in simplifying internal audits and third-party risk assessments.
Workflow management
It helps in creating GRC inclusive workflows is made easy, thus allowing transparent and hassle-free workflow management.
Reporting tools:
Reporting tools provide users with an option to customise as well as export data to create reports. The formats make it easy to add inputs in the available file formats.
Built-in integrations:
The built-in integrations feature enables connectivity to other software and essential tools.
Compliance management:
Compliance management is an essential feature of GRC software. It helps assess if the company's policies resonate with the compliance efforts and regulatory requirements. It also notifies any changes in regulations and government policies in real-time.
Cloud-based Risk Management
With businesses shifting their base to the cloud, the risk management software also has a cloud interface to make it easy for organisations to assess, manage and store risk information in real-time.
Why is GRC important for businesses in Australia?
With the help of GRCs, Australian businesses can govern their enterprise, find and overcome risks and manage workflows in real-time. They reduce the time required for manual documentation and handling risks and workflow data. The centralised platform offers access to all departments, thus providing transparency and visibility.
GRC software makes it easy to mitigate risks at the departmental level itself, thus improving work productivity. GRC also ensures the business strategy; plans comply with policies and government regulations. It shall save Australian businesses from any legal action for non-compliance. Thus, GRC software is essential for the overall growth of Australian companies.
ROI Support to Businesses
Companies may find it challenging to assign resources, address conflicts, and measure success. These issues can result from the increasing costs of addressing risks and requirements while facing the challenge of managing the exponential growth of third-party relationships and risk.
However, companies can set and monitor clear objectives with metrics generated from a GRC platform, which will help increase their performance and improve their ROI.
With an innovative GRC solution to power their governance, risk management, and compliance strategy, companies can more efficiently govern their business while effectively anticipating and managing the risks they face-even as their operations grow in complexity. In the current environment of heightened risk and uncertainty, GRC tools provide the visibility, intelligence, and control businesses need to ensure their enduring success. Learning the use of GRC tools is also quite easy.
Who shall opt for GRC software?
The following types of enterprises shall implement GRC software:
- Businesses seeking to enhance productivity; transparency in reporting and managing risks; compliance with regulations; and keenness to improve workflow.
- Companies that have a history of risk and compliance failure.
- SMEs and organisations lack confidence in managing their risk and compliance.
Is GRC Software industry-specific?
Australian businesses, irrespective of their industry, can benefit from GRC software. The larger size of an organisation makes it difficult to manage huge volumes of data and have a risk analysis for the various departments. Hence, big enterprises with governance, risk management, and compliance responsibilities distributed across multiple departments - may benefit more from adopting a unified methodology.
How much does GRC software cost?
A robust GRC software can range around $200,000, including software, hardware, and implementation. GRC software costs may reach as high as $600,000.
Top GRC software to look out for in 2022
Here is the list of the top GRC software to look out for in 2022:
- Fusion Framework System.
- StandardFusion.
- IBM OpenPages.
- ServiceNow Governance Risk and Compliance.
- SAI Global Compliance 360.
- Navex RiskRate.
- Enablon.
- Riskonnect
Why Choose Lahebo?
Lahebo is a cloud-based SAAS platform for SMEs and businesses willing to manage risk and compliance in real-time on a user-friendly database. Below are the core functions that make Lahebo stand out from the crowd for your risk and compliance needs:
- Dashboard Reporting.
- Real-time risk profile reporting.
- Management and status reporting.
- Earlier identification of risks.
- Controlled Risk Register.
- Company risks connected to the Legal Register.
- Mitigation, Incident, and non-conformance tracking.
- Legal Register
- Legislative Library
- Notification of Legislation and Standard changes.
The other features that will make Lahebo a favourite among Australian businesses are listed below:
- Systematic Risk and Compliance Management.
- Cost-effective packages.
- User manuals and descriptive blogs.
- Ease of access.
- Responsive Customer Care.
- Additional assistance from our Boutique consultancy Anitech for paid expert advice.
So, if you want to manage risk and comply with regulations, your business needs Lahebo. Contact us for further information; call us on 1300 802 163.