Planning Ahead In Times of Uncertainty

We’re in a period of macroeconomic uncertainty, and economists anticipate a global recession soon. Stagnating economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation rates, and the ongoing war in Ukraine have strained supply chains and decreased consumer buying power. 

While nobody has a crystal ball, prominent financial analysts are warning businesses and consumers that a recession may be on the horizon. For example, financial institution Vanguard estimates the probability of a recession at 25% within the next 12 months and 65% in the next 24 months. 

Some experts say that the Federal Reserve’s previous and upcoming interest rate hikes will push recession risks into 2023, but the macroeconomic turmoil is already being felt worldwide. 

Cost-cutting is a time-honored strategy to prepare businesses for an uncertain economic future. Smart cost-cutting will allow businesses to decrease operating expenses without sacrificing operational excellence. If done right, businesses will not just survive — but thrive.

Risk leaders need to start evaluating and maximizing their budgets. Regulatory requirements and business risks aren’t going anywhere, so decision-makers need to maintain compliance and mitigate risks with limited resources. 

Using the right GRC software can enable agile decision-making, provide freedom to reimagine manual processes, and improve company-wide collaboration. Read on to learn why GRC software is valuable to help your company thrive during economic uncertainty. 

Cost-Cutting is Essential for Weathering Economic Turmoil

Businesses in every industry benefit from expertly managing risks in uncertain times. The COVID-19 pandemic taught risk leaders the importance of having business continuity plans for any scenario. 

Now, as more uncertain times outside your control seem inevitable, it’s time to plan ahead. Decreasing operating expenses, also known simply as cost-cutting, is vital to ensuring the business can continue to operate effectively with decreasing revenue.

How can businesses keep the lights on without sacrificing compliance or inviting more risks? Even better, how can a GRC platform improve the business so that you emerge from the recession stronger than before?

Leverage Our GRC Platform to Maximize Your Budget

While it seems likely that a recession will occur, nobody knows its extent. The duration and severity of the economic downturn are entirely unknown. 

Risk leaders can plan for the worst by leveraging the full capabilities of our GRC platform. Let’s explore how our platform is a vital tool for making it to the other side of the recession. 

Enable Agile Decision Making

Risk leaders and other decision-makers often need to make crucial decisions within limited timeframes. Waiting for someone on the risk management team to compile a report manually simply takes too much time. Instead, leaders can directly access LogicGate’s Risk Cloud to find automated reports with the needed data.

Additionally, executives need transparency and oversight into risk management without relying on email threads or scattered spreadsheets. Decision-makers need to be informed when they need to make urgent cost-cutting decisions. Understanding up-to-date risk management processes and other compliance information on-demand is a significant advantage in responding to external difficulties rapidly.

Re-Evaluate Your Workforce Needs

Your workforce is likely your most considerable operating expense, making it an excellent opportunity for cutting costs. However, reducing workforce costs shouldn’t inhibit your ability to mitigate risks and maintain compliance. 

Mind-numbing manual tasks can often be replaced by automated reporting enabled by leading-edge GRC solutions. You can then reduce your workforce needs, freeing up employees to work on higher-impact projects and overall reducing the human capital investments required to maintain compliance. In short, make sure the time employees are spending on necessary tasks is being used efficiently.

Improve Consistency Across Departments

Your business needs to operate as a cohesive unit to maximize your limited budget. If every department is creating its own processes for similar tasks, you’re wasting resources. Instead, a central GRC dashboard destroys siloed processes and improves consistency throughout the company. 

For example, processes created by the compliance department can be shared with the purchasing department for vetting new vendors rather than requiring purchasers to create new processes that may not cover everything necessary to prove compliance.

Have a Central Home for Business Continuity Plans

Creating robust business continuity plans is necessary, but they also need to be readily available for any department that needs them. A delay in finding relevant continuity plans will often hinder responsiveness and agile decision-making, which can be costly. 

For example, will the right people know where to find the continuity plan if your supply chain is suddenly disrupted by a vendor going out of business? If your risk department has prepared for this scenario, it will all be for nothing if other departments don’t know where to look. 

The right GRC platform can create a centralized home for all risk-related information, including continuity and incident response plans. As a result, teams throughout the company will know exactly where to go to find the direction they need quickly. 

Similarly, creating a central location for risk and compliance information can significantly reduce the time involved in internal and external audits. 

Leverage Integrations to Streamline Communication and Collaboration

Collaboration and communication are essential. Using disparate and disconnected applications throughout the company will hinder cross-departmental collaboration, impacting how effectively your company operates. 

The right GRC platform will include robust integrations that empower collaboration and communication. Improving the ability to communicate throughout the company reduces time spent trying to find information and reports, further maximizing your workforce’s time.

For example, Risk Cloud integrates with popular ticketing systems to handle risk-related tasks across multiple departments. Our platform also integrates with communication apps such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to make handling incidents and sharing data effortless. 

Discover Why LogicGate’s Risk Cloud is a Must-Have

Businesses have always employed cost-cutting strategies to survive economic downturns. However, rather than simply eliminating services to cut their upfront costs, businesses should explore how some applications can actually maximize their operating expenses. 

LogicGate’s Risk Cloud platform is a cloud-based GRC platform that empowers businesses to make faster decisions, automate manual processes, and improve cross-department communication. Unlike some other apps in your tech stack, Risk Cloud is a must-have to maximize limited budgets.

Learn more about Risk Coud's capabilities today by booking a demo with our GRC experts.