How can companies use the increasing demands for legislative and regulatory compliance to provide benefit? Whilst good governance, effective risk management and compliance management are undoubtedly a challenge for many businesses and can be viewed as onerous they can also be viewed in a more attractive light as a catalyst for change. If embraced correctly they can help organizations achieve greatly improved business performance in turn creating increased shareholder value.

Today there are many legislative, regulatory and best-practice standards affecting organizations and the number and complexity of these requirements is forecast to increase. From our perspective it is essential that organizations invest in GRC compliance management systems to provide a framework and tools for managing all the requirements of the regulations. Organizations need a system which will ensure that they both comply with the latest standards and can easily incorporate new demands at any time. Leading business analysts recommend a single integrated GRC system approach, to aid simple management and reduce costs.

The leading GRC management solutions should be able to addresses the business-critical issues, forming the foundation for a single corporate wide unified GRC platform. As with all software different applications will have their strengths. Some will be very industry specific others will be more flexible and provide the functionality to cover multiple compliance areas, including Sarbanes-Oxley, ISO 9000:2000, ISO 14000 and ISO 18000, Life Sciences, IS0 27001 and multiple industry specific compliance requirements.

The key benefits a Governance Risk and Compliance Management system should deliver are:

Consistency - delivered across the enterprise, by using Document Management for the enterprise wide output of information including everyday email systems ensuring enterprise wide adoption and adherence.

Sustainability - by offering organizations the framework to manage changes and new requirements as they occur, be they organizational changes, such as acquisitions or entry into new markets; or GRC management changes, such as new or amended legislation and standards.

Efficiency - by supporting efficient allocation of resources, as highest cost and risk areas are identified.

Accountability - ensuring that corrective and preventative actions are managed and recorded throughout defined processes.

When selecting a GRC software solution look for the following features:

Policies, procedure and controls management
This functionality is important for the development, maintenance and communication of the policies and procedures to comply with regulations and standards.

Risk & control assessment
This functionality is required for the gathering of information for evaluation of adherence to standards.

Risk analytics
These provide the data for executive and management personnel to measure the overall state of risk and compliance.

Investigations management
To centrally manage the recording of incidents and facilitate the development and implementation of corrective and preventative actions.