The Challenge
Risk and compliance are among the top issues executives feel least prepared to address. Part of the reason is attributed to the fact that with limited resources and compliance deadlines looming, organizations often find themselves overwhelmed by the demands of new and changing regulatory requirements. But the problem is also that they do not really know what GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) is and how the acronym can fit into their processes.
GRC is the integrated collection of capabilities that enable an organization to reliably achieve objectives, address uncertainty and act with integrity. The goal is to effectively define, manage and monitor the external and internal business environments to assure the protection and growth of value within risk tolerance and legal boundaries. This involves moving toward a federated organizational structure, where GRC functions are centrally overseen, but responsibility is distributed across all lines of business.
The Solution
QI Solutions GRC is a robust web-based software for supporting all governance, risk and compliance management processes in the organization. It enables organizations to effectively integrate business strategy execution with compliance and risk management practices. As a result, managers can accomplish organizational goals while managing risk and ensuring that operations stay compliant with corporate policies, laws and regulations, such as SOX, COSO, COBIT, and ISO 31000.
The solution interconnects all the main GRC elements – risks, controls, policies, laws/regulations, loss events, KRIs, KPIs, issues, assessments, action plans and audits. This enables companies to easily visualize how each GRC element affects other elements. The integrated approach of SoftExpert GRC removes many obstacles to implementing solutions and to unlocking the value of GRC for the entire enterprise. It provides abilities to streamline planning, drive multiple methodologies and conduct refined risk modeling across business lines and functional groups, enhancing governance from IT to corporate levels.
In addition to mapping risks and internal controls, the holistic approach of QI Solutions GRC software will show how key items of the organization interact, providing organizations with a clear, shared vision of the operating model. This will enable managers to make better decisions, ensure that the right systems are in place, and lead stakeholder efforts to work towards the same operational governance strategy. To support this process, dashboards providing up-to-date information on the status of the risk and compliance activities can be rapidly created.
QI Solutions for GRC offers tangible business benefits from consistent and closed-loop processes across departments and functions, real-time visibility and easy access to risk and compliance data, and a collaborative environment for improved cooperation between teams. It is a successful, embedded and integrated solution that results in a transparent organization, with streamlined processes, significant cost and time savings, reductions in key controls and risks, and numerous alternatives for business performance improvements.
Governance Risk Compliance GRC
Main Benefits
Reduce costs, since redundant activities are identified and streamlined or eliminated.
Reduce gaps and errors, since the integration creates a holistic system of checks.
Increase quality of the risk-based information on which strategical and tactical decisions are based.
Comply with confidence, establishing controls and acceptable levels of risk while staying in alignment with objectives and policies.
Increase transparency into risk and compliance results.
Provide trust results from consistent organizational positions and actions, from oversight to operations.
Increase agility with a clear definition of who handles what activities in what sequence.
Promote the ability to repeat processes in a consistent manner.
Create more focus on substantive issues and corporate strategy.
Assure that expectations and objectives are met.
Increase the efficiency of internal and external audits.
Increase business agility by identifying the root cause of compliance problems and acting quickly to resolve them.
Enhance monitoring and reporting with desktop and mobile dashboards.
Process modeling
Policies and procedures
Initiative implementation
Risk assessment
Tests and Control
Audit activities
Features
PLANNING AND MAPPING: Strategy planning and mapping with objectives, indicators, tactical plans and all needed to put the strategy into action.
WORKFLOWS AND INCIDENTS: Configurable fields and workflows to report, resolve and track any number of incident types and issues.
RISK: Common risk management stages support: identification, assessment, response and monitoring.
AUDIT: Risk-based audit, from scheduling to execution, providing better assurance when managing and tracking business requirements.
REPOSITORY: Central repository for the portfolio of policies, procedures and documents.
PERFORMANCE MONITORING: Management dashboards for managing and tracking corporate performance.
Solution Overview
Traditionally, when enterprise professionals discuss the ROI of an investment, they are mostly thinking of “financial” benefits. Today, organizations must also consider the “non financial” benefits of an investment.
Financial Benefits include impacts on the organization’s budget and finances, e.g., reduced costs or increased revenues.
Non-Financial Benefits are the so-called “intangible”, “soft,” or “unquantifiable” benefits of an investment. Unlike financial returns, there may be no widely-accepted metrics for organizations to apply. However, the QI Solutions present undeniable potential for producing positive impacts on business performance and mission results. These include improved customer satisfaction, more precise information and a shorter cycle time.
When considering the ROI of compliance or meeting governance requirements or avoiding non-compliance of any of other rules and regulations, there is more to the exercise than calculating that cost and benefits of technology implementation. Assessing ROI really starts with understanding the costs and economic returns that result from improved governance. According to MIT Sloan School of Management research, on average, business with superior governance practices generate 20% greater profits than other companies.
Annual Savings
- Reduces cost, since redundant activities are identified and streamlined or eliminated;
- Reduces need and cost for reconciling information across the organization;
- Reduces gaps and errors, since the integration creates a holistic system of checks;
- Drives agility by a clear definition of who handles what activities in what sequence;
- Reduces risk response times and ensure action is being taken, monitored and documented;
- Reduces time to market (avoids revenue loss);
- Cuts costs and increases revenue by:
- Lowering duplication of work efforts;
- Lowering development costs (fewer instances of rework and errors);
- Lowering operational costs;
- Saving labor costs;
- Greater market share;
- Cross/up-selling;
- Improving cash management (increasing cash flow).
Investment
- The investment in QI Solutions GRC will depend upon the business unit size and implementation approach.
Return on Investment (%)
- (((Total Annual Savings x n years) – Initial Investment) / Initial Investment) x 100.
Payback Period (years)
- Initial Investment / Total Annual Savings
- Increases quality of risk-based information on which strategical and tactical decisions are based;
- Enhances employee motivation as contribution to achieving objectives becomes clear;
- Provides trust results from consistent organizational positions and actions, from oversight through operations;
- Improves the effective management of stakeholder expectations;
- Adherences to corporate code and compliance regulations;
- Assures that expectations and objectives are met;
- Better resource management;
- Enhances reputation among customers, market and competitors;
- Improves access to data;
- Improves investor relations;
- Enable rapid response and remediation to risk and compliance issues;
- Improves visibility and predictability performance