Written by SureCloud’s Matthew Davies, Senior Applications Director & GRC Expert
Many organizations manage their governance, risk, and compliance processes through manual spreadsheets, but this becomes unsustainable to track governance, risk, and compliance activities. Eventually, businesses will require purpose-built technology to support their people and processes to advance their GRC programs. Strong GRC tooling will make it easier and more attainable for businesses to accomplish their goals and manage risk and compliance effectively. Businesses that have a strong GRC program and underlying processes that are supported by flexible technology are able to adapt and react quickly.
Goodbye manual compliance efforts
The humble spreadsheet relies on manual data entry. Although at the time it may be appropriate and unproblematic for some tasks, it may become an issue for larger tasks with extensive volumes of dynamic data, where information requires frequent updates which can be lengthy and more prone to errors.
Spreadsheet experts or GRC experts?
It is highly likely governance, risk, and compliance professionals spend long hours editing, reporting, and inputting data via spreadsheets to build effective GRC reports. This raises the question of whether spreadsheets scale well. Spreadsheets require your employees to be Excel professionals who understand numerous formulas instead of focusing on their expertise in risk and compliance management. As well as its impacts on efficiency, it can often lead to mistakes that could negatively impact your organisations governance, risk and compliance management program.
Integrating with multiple stakeholders
Don’t forget that GRC processes do not just apply to only GRC professionals but also non-risk and compliance employees and even suppliers who need to contribute to the program and log in to the relevant system. Therefore, it’s critical that the system is organized and easy to use.
Spreadsheets can be inconsistent, especially when different stakeholders require access and update the same centralized data source. Doing so can cause challenges in terms of consistency and efficiency and the fear of data loss. Additionally, spreadsheets can slow businesses down rather than speeding them up. Organizations do not want GRC processes to become over-complex and a burden on employees to maintain and support.
Going beyond the tick box, to effectively mature your program
Spreadsheets lack the ability to cross-reference data or provide useful risk and compliance insights for enterprise GRC reporting. Organizations looking to gain a comprehensive governance, risk, and compliance program must look beyond just passing IT audits and gain effective insights that will advance their current GRC processes. Spreadsheet’s static nature prevents GRC experts from analyzing the true risks and developments across their ever-growing threat landscape.
This is far faster, more accurate, and less cumbersome than using a series of spreadsheets, emails, and communication channels to manage particularly personal aspects of GRC. Spreadsheets are still a vital business tool – just not when it comes to GRC.
About Matthew
Matthew Davies is responsible for the go-to-market proposition behind our GRC solution offerings and helps maximise the business value of our solutions. Before SureCloud, Matthew previously held positions in GRC implementation, pre-sales and product development at Deloitte and PWC.
About SureCloud
SureCloud is a provider of Gartner recognized GRC software and Cyber & Risk Advisory services. Whether buying products or services, your organization would benefit from automated workflows and insight from the award-winning SureCloud platform. All of SureCloud’s service offerings are fully compatible with the GRC suite of products enabling seamless integration of information, taking your risk programs to the next level.