A GRC tool can help an organization manage its governance, risk, and compliance program. But why use a GRC tool instead of managing your GRC program manually?
GRC tools can be invaluable for teams that are working with multiple frameworks, managing a wide array of risks, or want more transparency from their security and compliance programs.
As opposed to manual program management, GRC platforms produce several common benefits that decrease reduce stress and improve security maturity. Here’s how:
Visibility
A GRC tool provides visibility into your security and compliance program in a few different ways. Metrics allow you to quantify risk and gauge your progress over time. For example, by ranking risks based on impact and likelihood and then tracking remediation, you can see how your risk profile changes over time.
GRC tools also provide insight into what activities make up your security and compliance program. You can also see all these ongoing activities in one place, allowing you to gauge effort and timelines. These activities may include access reviews, vendor reviews, risk assessments, and compliance assessments.
Finally, when top management wants a quick view of the security and compliance program, these metrics and activities can be combined into a report for a single view of the program’s state.
Accountability
Accountability is critical when managing a complex security and privacy program. With a GRC tool, you can delegate tasks and track their completion.
These tasks could include audit evidence upload, access reviews, or any number of required activities. On a regular basis, managers can look at historical data and verify that all activities have been completed. If any workstream is falling behind, the manager can see the latest updates and find out why progress is blocked.
Continuity
Security and compliance programs are not one-and-done efforts – they are continuous and evolve over years. By centralizing information in a GRC tool, team members can view historical data and get a better idea of what is required of them.
If a team member leaves the organization, all their tasks can easily be re-assigned to another individual. This way, nothing is lost during the transition.
Security
Security-related information is often confidential. For example, audit artifacts may contain employee PII or firewall configuration settings.
A GRC tool allows you to store this information in a secure place with strong access controls. These access controls allow you to granularly define what an employee can access. If an employee leaves the organization, their access to the platform can easily be turned off
Conclusion
A GRC tool gives visibility into your security and compliance program and helps you maintain the program year over year. If you want to learn more about risk3sixty’s GRC platform, Phalanx, reach out and schedule a demo!
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