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Keeping up with all the changes in the security and compliance landscape can be demanding. It requires a systematic approach to control implementation and monitoring and a comprehensive risk management strategy.
Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) programs enable such a holistic approach. They unify teams, processes, and IT systems under a single, organization-wide strategy aligned with the organization’s overarching business objectives.
Developing and implementing an effective GRC framework is a complex task, and this article will guide you through the process to give you a head start. We’ll cover:
- The definition and components of GRC
- Benefits of an effective GRC strategy
- GRC roles and responsibilities
- Five implementation steps to follow
What does GRC stand for?
GRC (governance, risk, compliance) is an integrated approach to the implementation and oversight of different governance, risk management, and compliance activities. The table below offers a high-level overview of its key components:
{{cta_withimage8="/cta-blocks"}}
The overlaps you see here aren’t accidental—all GRC activities must be closely related to form a unified program instead of being siloed in standalone strategies. There are several reasons for this, most notably:
- Ever-evolving cybersecurity threats: The number and complexity of cybersecurity threats increase continuously, calling for an integrated security approach that goes beyond technical controls. Your organization must comply with all the necessary security regulations and develop a culture of threat awareness at all levels.
- Frequent changes to an organization’s regulatory landscape: Your compliance posture and obligations change at all times, so you need to replace point-in-time assessments and updates with continuous monitoring to keep up and ensure ongoing compliance.
- The need for advanced data privacy and security strategies: Data security goes beyond your IT infrastructure and must also encompass people and processes. This calls for a comprehensive approach to security that combines all components of GRC.
- Complex and diverse third-party relationships: Besides managing your own risk posture, you must closely monitor your third-party network through a comprehensive risk management strategy to avoid exploited external vulnerabilities.
GRC vs. EGRC
As we define GRC through the various activities an organization performs to operate while managing risk, we must differentiate between the levels at which these activities are conducted. In this context, we can separate traditional GRC from enterprise governance risk and compliance (EGRC).
While traditional GRC often focuses on specific departments, EGRC maintains a high-level focus on the related policies and practices associated with the overall organization. This broader focus results in four notable differences outlined in the following table:
Many organizations start with traditional GRC due to resource constraints. As their program matures, they gradually transition into EGRC.
What is a GRC framework?
A governance risk and compliance framework is an organization-level model that outlines how a GRC program will be implemented. It’s built on a set of policies that help an organization achieve its goals while considering the relevant risk and compliance challenges and objectives.
While the specifics of a GRC framework can vary according to various factors like an organization’s industry and regulatory obligations, common elements include:
- GRC solution: Organizations use dedicated software to automate various activities related to their GRC program (policy management, compliance monitoring, GRC reporting, etc.).
- Security information and event management (SIEM) tools: SIEM platforms enable a comprehensive overview of an organization’s security posture and help detect threats swiftly. They’re particularly important for large organizations with elaborate security infrastructures that can’t be managed effectively without dedicated solutions.
- Monitoring and auditing processes: Regular GRC audits help you oversee and update your risk management, compliance, and other relevant activities within the GRC program. Ideally, you’ll streamline audits by leveraging a continuous monitoring solution.
- User management: From role-based access controls to effective onboarding and offboarding, GRC requires numerous user management policies and practices to ensure everyone adheres to the necessary standards.
Seeing as GRC is an organization-wide effort, an effective program should particularly focus on another element—clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
GRC roles and responsibilities
GRC requires cross-department collaboration, which exposes organizations to the risks of duplicative work and unclear responsibilities. To avoid these issues, ensure everyone is on the same page and clearly understands how they can contribute to an effective GRC program.
If you need a reference point, the table below explains the typical responsibilities of different teams and departments:
While you’ll have a dedicated person or team in charge of GRC implementation, the ownership shouldn't rest with a single role. Ensuring compliance and overseeing the program’s success requires a collective effort, so ensure accountability across organizational levels.
{{cta_withimage24="/cta-blocks"}} | How to choose the right continuous compliance solution
Benefits of an effective GRC program
In organizations with less mature security programs, it’s common for governance, risk management, and compliance to be managed separately. While this may work in the short term, it can result in piecemeal tasks and siloed projects, teams, and tools in the long run.
As an organization grows and matures, so should its security program—and this involves taking a systematic approach to GRC. The benefits of such an approach include:
- Improved efficiency: With a structured GRC strategy, you can plan your team’s resources effectively and integrate compliance and risk management tasks into their day-to-day workflows. This prevents security tasks from falling through the cracks and ensures teams aren’t duplicating efforts.
- Ongoing compliance: Gaps in compliance could lead to legal fines, loss of business, and other costly consequences. With a GRC approach, compliance is integrated into your teams’ workflows, ensuring continuous compliance and helping your organization avoid potential gaps.
- Enhanced visibility: A well-implemented GRC program with robust tools offers increased transparency to stakeholders and gives employees, customers, partners, and auditors better visibility into your GRC practices.
- Stronger security posture: Risk management is only effective if it’s implemented strategically. With a GRC program, risk management is set up with continuous processes to ensure that you’re managing risk appropriately and quickly.
5 steps to implementing a successful GRC program
You can build and execute an elaborate GRC program by following these steps:
- Understand the GRC Capability Model
- Assess your GRC objectives
- Choose the right GRC tools
- Build a GRC framework
- Test and expand your GRC program gradually
Below, we’ll cover each step in more detail.
Step 1: Understand the GRC Capability Model
The GRC Capability Model is a comprehensive set of guidelines organizations can use to develop and implement a GRC framework. It outlines the key policies and practices related to communication, training, and other important aspects of GRC implementation.
The GRC model consists of four elements:
- Learn: Understand the context of your organization, its stakeholders, culture, and key industry expectations
- Align: Develop effective controls for aligning business objectives with the long-term strategy and monitoring your progress toward achieving them
- Perform: Implement your policies and controls, and take a proactive approach to addressing both emerging opportunities and potential challenges
- Review: Monitor and reassess all your GRC activities to identify areas of improvement
Step 2: Assess your GRC objectives
If you’ve already conducted any GRC activities (e.g., risk assessments or internal compliance audits), compare them to the industry-accepted practices to identify gaps and define your GRC goals. There are no universal objectives to adopt—you must define yours through activities such as:
- Compliance audits
- Security reviews
- Risk assessments
The above processes should be conducted against specific reference points, which are typically regulations and security standards that industry leaders follow, such as:
- ISO 27001
- HIPAA
- SOC 2
After performing the necessary activities, you can identify gaps that will inform your GRC framework.
Step 3: Choose the right GRC tools
Your chosen GRC software can make or break the program’s effectiveness and everyday workflows. There are many options to consider, so research which solution best aligns with your objectives, IT infrastructure, and compliance requirements.
Regardless of these factors, the key features to look for in your GRC solution include:
- Workflow automation
- Centralized documentation
- Risk management features
- Continuous monitoring and reporting
You might not find a single platform that checks all the necessary boxes and offers complete GRC automation, so you might adopt several solutions. In this case, make sure they come with extensive integrations that let you create a cohesive environment.
Step 4: Build a GRC framework
After defining your GRC objectives, use them to develop a corresponding GRC framework that will help you achieve them. The key components of the framework include:
- Program scope: Outline your key IT assets, policies, and procedures to scope the GRC program precisely
- Process and tool integration: Bring processes and software together to develop streamlined GRC workflows
- Key roles and responsibilities: Assign responsibilities for different GRC processes and make sure all team members understand them
- Milestones and KPIs: To understand how effective your organization’s GRC program is, measure the length of audit engagement (in hours), the number of findings in audit engagements over time, and the time required to remediate findings
During the framework planning stage, you must get all the key stakeholders and departments on board. Doing so ensures alignment and enables effective collaboration.
Step 5: Test and expand your GRC program gradually
It's not advisable to enforce your GRC program in one go—this could overwhelm your teams and cause notable operational disruptions. You’d have to overhaul your current processes, which might lead to haphazard implementation and unsatisfactory results.
To avoid this, test your program on a specific function to see how it behaves in real-life settings and identify any inefficiencies. After assessing its effectiveness and achieving the desired results, you can gradually expand it to other functions in your organization.
During the expansion, make sure to closely monitor the program’s performance. Develop effective feedback loops that allow your team to highlight and address any issues promptly as they arise.
{{cta_withimage8="/cta-blocks"}} | GRC implementation guide
Implement a comprehensive GRC program with Vanta
Whether you’re developing a new GRC program or optimizing an existing one, software is key, and Vanta offers a solution that streamlines program implementation and oversight.
This comprehensive GRC product replaces inefficient legacy software and manual processes with automated workflows that save your teams considerable time and effort. It reduces time spent on compliance and audits by 82% and speeds up policy writing and reviewing by 66%.
It does so through a robust set of features, including:
- Centralized risk management
- Automated evidence collection
- Streamlined control monitoring
- Revenue- and risk-informed GRC reports
- Extensive customization features
- Over 375 integrations with popular software (cloud providers, CRM systems, etc.)
The product also offers dedicated workspaces, letting you create separate workflows for individual business units and oversee them from a centralized dashboard. This makes it an excellent solution for organizations that want to mature from traditional GRC to a comprehensive EGRC program.
Schedule a custom demo of Vanta’s GRC solution to see its features live and explore its practical applications.
{{cta_simple29="/cta-blocks"}} | GRC product page
Introduction to GRC
What is GRC?
Looking to upgrade to continuous, automated GRC and get visibility across your entire program?
Keeping up with all the changes in the security and compliance landscape can be demanding. It requires a systematic approach to control implementation and monitoring and a comprehensive risk management strategy.
Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) programs enable such a holistic approach. They unify teams, processes, and IT systems under a single, organization-wide strategy aligned with the organization’s overarching business objectives.
Developing and implementing an effective GRC framework is a complex task, and this article will guide you through the process to give you a head start. We’ll cover:
- The definition and components of GRC
- Benefits of an effective GRC strategy
- GRC roles and responsibilities
- Five implementation steps to follow
What does GRC stand for?
GRC (governance, risk, compliance) is an integrated approach to the implementation and oversight of different governance, risk management, and compliance activities. The table below offers a high-level overview of its key components:
{{cta_withimage8="/cta-blocks"}}
The overlaps you see here aren’t accidental—all GRC activities must be closely related to form a unified program instead of being siloed in standalone strategies. There are several reasons for this, most notably:
- Ever-evolving cybersecurity threats: The number and complexity of cybersecurity threats increase continuously, calling for an integrated security approach that goes beyond technical controls. Your organization must comply with all the necessary security regulations and develop a culture of threat awareness at all levels.
- Frequent changes to an organization’s regulatory landscape: Your compliance posture and obligations change at all times, so you need to replace point-in-time assessments and updates with continuous monitoring to keep up and ensure ongoing compliance.
- The need for advanced data privacy and security strategies: Data security goes beyond your IT infrastructure and must also encompass people and processes. This calls for a comprehensive approach to security that combines all components of GRC.
- Complex and diverse third-party relationships: Besides managing your own risk posture, you must closely monitor your third-party network through a comprehensive risk management strategy to avoid exploited external vulnerabilities.
GRC vs. EGRC
As we define GRC through the various activities an organization performs to operate while managing risk, we must differentiate between the levels at which these activities are conducted. In this context, we can separate traditional GRC from enterprise governance risk and compliance (EGRC).
While traditional GRC often focuses on specific departments, EGRC maintains a high-level focus on the related policies and practices associated with the overall organization. This broader focus results in four notable differences outlined in the following table:
Many organizations start with traditional GRC due to resource constraints. As their program matures, they gradually transition into EGRC.
What is a GRC framework?
A governance risk and compliance framework is an organization-level model that outlines how a GRC program will be implemented. It’s built on a set of policies that help an organization achieve its goals while considering the relevant risk and compliance challenges and objectives.
While the specifics of a GRC framework can vary according to various factors like an organization’s industry and regulatory obligations, common elements include:
- GRC solution: Organizations use dedicated software to automate various activities related to their GRC program (policy management, compliance monitoring, GRC reporting, etc.).
- Security information and event management (SIEM) tools: SIEM platforms enable a comprehensive overview of an organization’s security posture and help detect threats swiftly. They’re particularly important for large organizations with elaborate security infrastructures that can’t be managed effectively without dedicated solutions.
- Monitoring and auditing processes: Regular GRC audits help you oversee and update your risk management, compliance, and other relevant activities within the GRC program. Ideally, you’ll streamline audits by leveraging a continuous monitoring solution.
- User management: From role-based access controls to effective onboarding and offboarding, GRC requires numerous user management policies and practices to ensure everyone adheres to the necessary standards.
Seeing as GRC is an organization-wide effort, an effective program should particularly focus on another element—clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
GRC roles and responsibilities
GRC requires cross-department collaboration, which exposes organizations to the risks of duplicative work and unclear responsibilities. To avoid these issues, ensure everyone is on the same page and clearly understands how they can contribute to an effective GRC program.
If you need a reference point, the table below explains the typical responsibilities of different teams and departments:
While you’ll have a dedicated person or team in charge of GRC implementation, the ownership shouldn't rest with a single role. Ensuring compliance and overseeing the program’s success requires a collective effort, so ensure accountability across organizational levels.
{{cta_withimage24="/cta-blocks"}} | How to choose the right continuous compliance solution
Benefits of an effective GRC program
In organizations with less mature security programs, it’s common for governance, risk management, and compliance to be managed separately. While this may work in the short term, it can result in piecemeal tasks and siloed projects, teams, and tools in the long run.
As an organization grows and matures, so should its security program—and this involves taking a systematic approach to GRC. The benefits of such an approach include:
- Improved efficiency: With a structured GRC strategy, you can plan your team’s resources effectively and integrate compliance and risk management tasks into their day-to-day workflows. This prevents security tasks from falling through the cracks and ensures teams aren’t duplicating efforts.
- Ongoing compliance: Gaps in compliance could lead to legal fines, loss of business, and other costly consequences. With a GRC approach, compliance is integrated into your teams’ workflows, ensuring continuous compliance and helping your organization avoid potential gaps.
- Enhanced visibility: A well-implemented GRC program with robust tools offers increased transparency to stakeholders and gives employees, customers, partners, and auditors better visibility into your GRC practices.
- Stronger security posture: Risk management is only effective if it’s implemented strategically. With a GRC program, risk management is set up with continuous processes to ensure that you’re managing risk appropriately and quickly.
5 steps to implementing a successful GRC program
You can build and execute an elaborate GRC program by following these steps:
- Understand the GRC Capability Model
- Assess your GRC objectives
- Choose the right GRC tools
- Build a GRC framework
- Test and expand your GRC program gradually
Below, we’ll cover each step in more detail.
Step 1: Understand the GRC Capability Model
The GRC Capability Model is a comprehensive set of guidelines organizations can use to develop and implement a GRC framework. It outlines the key policies and practices related to communication, training, and other important aspects of GRC implementation.
The GRC model consists of four elements:
- Learn: Understand the context of your organization, its stakeholders, culture, and key industry expectations
- Align: Develop effective controls for aligning business objectives with the long-term strategy and monitoring your progress toward achieving them
- Perform: Implement your policies and controls, and take a proactive approach to addressing both emerging opportunities and potential challenges
- Review: Monitor and reassess all your GRC activities to identify areas of improvement
Step 2: Assess your GRC objectives
If you’ve already conducted any GRC activities (e.g., risk assessments or internal compliance audits), compare them to the industry-accepted practices to identify gaps and define your GRC goals. There are no universal objectives to adopt—you must define yours through activities such as:
- Compliance audits
- Security reviews
- Risk assessments
The above processes should be conducted against specific reference points, which are typically regulations and security standards that industry leaders follow, such as:
- ISO 27001
- HIPAA
- SOC 2
After performing the necessary activities, you can identify gaps that will inform your GRC framework.
Step 3: Choose the right GRC tools
Your chosen GRC software can make or break the program’s effectiveness and everyday workflows. There are many options to consider, so research which solution best aligns with your objectives, IT infrastructure, and compliance requirements.
Regardless of these factors, the key features to look for in your GRC solution include:
- Workflow automation
- Centralized documentation
- Risk management features
- Continuous monitoring and reporting
You might not find a single platform that checks all the necessary boxes and offers complete GRC automation, so you might adopt several solutions. In this case, make sure they come with extensive integrations that let you create a cohesive environment.
Step 4: Build a GRC framework
After defining your GRC objectives, use them to develop a corresponding GRC framework that will help you achieve them. The key components of the framework include:
- Program scope: Outline your key IT assets, policies, and procedures to scope the GRC program precisely
- Process and tool integration: Bring processes and software together to develop streamlined GRC workflows
- Key roles and responsibilities: Assign responsibilities for different GRC processes and make sure all team members understand them
- Milestones and KPIs: To understand how effective your organization’s GRC program is, measure the length of audit engagement (in hours), the number of findings in audit engagements over time, and the time required to remediate findings
During the framework planning stage, you must get all the key stakeholders and departments on board. Doing so ensures alignment and enables effective collaboration.
Step 5: Test and expand your GRC program gradually
It's not advisable to enforce your GRC program in one go—this could overwhelm your teams and cause notable operational disruptions. You’d have to overhaul your current processes, which might lead to haphazard implementation and unsatisfactory results.
To avoid this, test your program on a specific function to see how it behaves in real-life settings and identify any inefficiencies. After assessing its effectiveness and achieving the desired results, you can gradually expand it to other functions in your organization.
During the expansion, make sure to closely monitor the program’s performance. Develop effective feedback loops that allow your team to highlight and address any issues promptly as they arise.
{{cta_withimage8="/cta-blocks"}} | GRC implementation guide
Implement a comprehensive GRC program with Vanta
Whether you’re developing a new GRC program or optimizing an existing one, software is key, and Vanta offers a solution that streamlines program implementation and oversight.
This comprehensive GRC product replaces inefficient legacy software and manual processes with automated workflows that save your teams considerable time and effort. It reduces time spent on compliance and audits by 82% and speeds up policy writing and reviewing by 66%.
It does so through a robust set of features, including:
- Centralized risk management
- Automated evidence collection
- Streamlined control monitoring
- Revenue- and risk-informed GRC reports
- Extensive customization features
- Over 375 integrations with popular software (cloud providers, CRM systems, etc.)
The product also offers dedicated workspaces, letting you create separate workflows for individual business units and oversee them from a centralized dashboard. This makes it an excellent solution for organizations that want to mature from traditional GRC to a comprehensive EGRC program.
Schedule a custom demo of Vanta’s GRC solution to see its features live and explore its practical applications.
{{cta_simple29="/cta-blocks"}} | GRC product page
| Role: | GRC responsibilities: |
|---|---|
| Board of directors | Central to the overarching GRC strategy, this group sets the direction for the compliance strategy. They determine which standards and regulations are necessary for compliance and align the GRC strategy with business objectives. |
| Chief financial officer | Primary responsibility for the success of the GRC program and for reporting results to the board. |
| Operations managers from relevant departments | This group owns processes. They are responsible for the success and direction of risk management and compliance within their departments. |
| Representatives from relevant departments | These are the activity owners. These team members are responsible for carrying out specific compliance and risk management tasks within their departments and for integrating these tasks into their workflows. |
| Contract managers from relevant department | These team members are responsible for managing interactions with vendors and other third parties in their department to ensure all risk management and compliance measures are being taken. |
| Chief information security officer (CISO) | Defines the organization’s information security policy, designs risk and vulnerability assessments, and develops information security policies. |
| Data protection officer (DPO) or legal counsel | Develops goals for data privacy based on legal regulations and other compliance needs, designs and implements privacy policies and practices, and assesses these practices for effectiveness. |
| GRC lead | Responsible for overseeing the execution of the GRC program in collaboration with the executive team as well as maintaining the organization’s library of security controls. |
| Cybersecurity analyst(s) | Implements and monitors cybersecurity measures that are in line with the GRC program and business objectives. |
| Compliance analyst(s) | Monitors the organization’s compliance with all regulations and standards necessary, identifies any compliance gaps, and works to mitigate them. |
| Risk analyst(s) | Carries out the risk management program for the organization and serves as a resource for risk management across various departments, including identifying, mitigating, and monitoring risks. |
| IT security specialist(s) | Implements security controls within the IT system in coordination with the cybersecurity analyst(s). |
Explore more GRC articles
Introduction to GRC
Implementing a GRC program
Optimizing a GRC program
Governance
Risk
Compliance
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