From public companies adhering to increasing disclosure and corporate governance standards to healthcare providers safeguarding patient data and financial and tech companies navigating global privacy laws, ensuring governance, risk and compliance management is a universal and ever-evolving challenge. As regulatory pressures continue to mount and stakeholder scrutiny intensifies, robust GRC practices are becoming the new standard for more organizations.
Whether you’re looking to improve board efficiency, enhance risk oversight or streamline compliance processes, read on to explore the critical role of GRC and how Aprio’s grc software can help.
Or skip ahead to these sections:
- Understanding governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC)
- Why integrate GRC into your organization?
- What are the core components of effective GRC programs?
- Common GRC frameworks
- How Aprio board portal software can support your GRC initiatives
- Manage GRC with Aprio
Understanding governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC)
Governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) are three interconnected elements that form the foundation of responsible and effective business management.
GRC is simply an integrated approach that aligns all governance, risk management and compliance activities. It ensures that an organization acts ethically, adheres to its established risk tolerance, follows internal policies and complies with relevant external laws and regulations.
See related: How to ensure good corporate governance
Why integrate GRC into your organization?
Without an effective governance risk and compliance approach, organizations may struggle with their overall corporate performance and board effectiveness.
Integrating GRC into your organization’s core processes helps align key business functions, eliminating silos as well as reduce costs. For example, by having a unified GRC framework, a financial institution can streamline its regulatory compliance efforts, ensuring it manages risk consistently across all departments. It can also enhance how your business operates by supporting more informed strategic decision-making and building a culture of accountability and transparency.
What are the core components of effective GRC programs?
Effective Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) programs are built on several interconnected components. Each element plays a vital role in creating a comprehensive framework to guide behavior in the organization, mitigate risks and ensure its meeting its compliance requirements.
Governance
Governance forms the foundation of any GRC program. It encompasses board oversight and leadership, establishing the organizational structure and defining responsibilities.
Governance also involves creating and implementing policies and procedures, setting strategic plans and goals and establishing methods for measuring and reporting performance.
Risk management
Risk management is needed to identify, assess and mitigate potential threats to the organization. This GRC component includes defining risk tolerance, developing strategies to address risks and implementing monitoring and reporting systems. It also covers business continuity planning and crisis management to ensure organizational resilience.
Compliance
Compliance ensures that the organization adheres to both external regulations and internal policies. This involves monitoring regulatory changes, maintaining internal policy compliance, upholding ethics and codes of conduct, conducting regular training and awareness programs and performing internal auditing or assurance processes.
Information and technology
Information and technology play a vital role in modern GRC programs. This component covers data management and security, IT governance, system integration and the use of analytics and reporting tools to support decision-making and compliance efforts.
Culture and ethics
Culture and ethics are essential to embedding GRC principles throughout the organization. From setting the right tone from the top to establishing an ethical decision-making framework and implementing whistleblowing mechanisms, this component helps foster a mindset of continuous improvement.
Stakeholder management
Stakeholder management ensures effective communication and engagement with all relevant parties. This involves developing communication strategies, practicing transparency and appropriate disclosure and actively engaging with stakeholders to build trust and understanding.
Performance management
Finally, performance management ties GRC activities to business objectives. This component includes defining and tracking key performance indicators, using balanced scorecards and implementing systems for continuous monitoring and improvement of GRC processes.
Want more insights into board best practices? Subscribe to receive monthly news from Aprio.
By providing your email, you consent to receive communications from Aprio. You can unsubscribe at any time. See our Privacy Policy.
Common GRC frameworks
While implementing GRC, organizations often rely on established frameworks to guide their efforts. These frameworks provide structured approaches to integrating governance, risk management and compliance activities.
Here are some of the widely recognized GRC frameworks that help organizations develop and refine their GRC strategies:
- COSO Framework: Developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, this framework focuses on enterprise risk management and internal control.
- COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies): Created by ISACA, COBIT is particularly useful for IT governance and management.
- ISO 31000: This international standard provides principles and guidelines for effective risk management across various industries.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework: While primarily focused on cybersecurity, this framework offers valuable insights for mitigating risks related to technology within a broader GRC context.
- OCEG GRC Capability Model: This comprehensive model outlines practices for integrating governance, risk management, compliance and ethics management.
By incorporating one or more of these frameworks, your organization can build a more robust and effective GRC strategy tailored to your specific needs and industry requirements.
How Aprio board portal software can support your GRC initiatives
Implementing a strong GRC framework requires both the right tools and processes. Aprio’s board portal software can help address key challenges such as:
- Centralizing all of your GRC information: Aprio gives you one secure and easy-to-access location for all board policies, strategic plans and risk guidance documents. Board members have equal access to vital information and can easily search for files on any device.
- More informed strategic discussions and decision-making: Board members can review materials, ask questions via chat and annotate documents ahead of a board meeting, encouraging more active participation and thorough discussion of governance, risk or compliance matters.
- Streamlined compliance reporting: Automatic archiving and audit trail capabilities ensure that all meeting minutes, motions, and reports are securely stored and easily accessible, providing transparency into board decisions and activities.
- Supporting ongoing performance evaluations: built-in survey tools for annual board and CEO evaluations help promote board and executive accountability and continuous improvement in the organization.
- More efficient director onboarding: As new directors have self-serve access to historical board discussions and important GRC documents, Aprio enables an organization to better manage governance and compliance risks as new board members can effectively contribute sooner.
“Aprio has made our governance practices so much easier and more efficient. The efficiency of providing board information to our directors has improved immensely and staff time in preparing meeting packages has been greatly reduced.” – BlueShore Financial
See related: How does a board of directors portal impact board governance?
Manage governance, risk management, and compliance with Aprio
Ready to learn more about how Aprio board meeting software can help your company improve its approach to GRC? Whether you’re considering board software for the first time in your organization or are looking to make a switch, assess the fit with Aprio.
Get in touch with us. We’d love to learn more about your business and how we can help support your business goals.
