Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) processes are critical to all organizations. They help prevent you from falling foul of legal and regulatory obligations and can protect you against cyber-attacks and malicious data theft – saving you from the potential financial and reputational damage they could involve. They also enable you to achieve better visibility and control over your internal business processes.
Many organizations face increasing pressure to:
- Operate efficiently within budgetary constraints
- Comply with an expanding set of regulations
- Respond to ever more challenging business objectives
As a result, siloed and highly manual approaches to governance, risk and compliance can appear all over an organization, many falling short or becoming cumbersome, error-prone and time-intensive. They also often require multiple systems with many being based in Excel. With its potential to save time, reduce complexity and help organizations make better decisions, the future of GRC is Integrated Risk Management.
Integrated Risk Management: what do we mean by the integrated approach?
Integrated risk management (IRM) is an approach you may increasingly see mentioned across a wide range of contexts. IRM focuses on the implementation of the efforts mentioned above, i.e. enabling different business functions to share risk processes and information with each other, breaking down the siloes of information which may previously have existed and creating a more holistic and comprehensive view of risk across the entire organization.
Gartner, who coined the term, defines IRM programs and solutions as combining “technology, processes and data to enable the simplification, automation and integration across three risk domains; Strategic/Enterprise, Operational and IT/Cybersecurity”. IRM solutions, therefore, provide an integrated view of risk ranging from the organization’s strategic objectives and intent down to the enabling technology and assets.
Gartner outlines six use cases within these risk domains; Digital Risk Management, Vendor Risk Management, Business Continuity Management, Audit Management, Corporate Compliance and Oversight and Enterprise Legal Management, all of which bring with them unique needs and requirements which must be delivered to the business leaders in order to succeed. SureCloud can offer reliable and robust solutions for all of these use cases.
For more information about the uses and benefits of IRM, check out Gartner’s IRM Solutions 2021 Magic Quadrant report.