Why Expertise Is a Top Consideration When Considering a GRC Partner

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Written by: Jay Jamison

Updated: October 25, 2024

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Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) is now critical to modern business operations, integrating functions across multiple departments. And to be frank, the acronym should be expanded to GRCPAI to include privacy and AI. As organizations face increasingly complex regulatory environments, evolving risks, and the new world of AI, selecting the right GRC solution has never been more important. The GRC market has many options to consider, each offering varying capabilities, integrations, and features. While many companies evaluate GRC vendors based on price, functionality, and scalability, one factor often overlooked in the RFP or evaluation criteria is vendor expertise.

Expertise matters. As Simon Sinek said, “We can't be everything to everyone, but we can be something to someone.” What is that “something” you are looking for? One specific application to manage internal auditing? A compliance solution set to ensure your business operations meet state, national and/or global standards? Or maybe a holistic approach to GRC to improve your overall risk posture across the entirety of your organization with modern security controls? GRC is an ever-evolving practice; place value in a vendor with extensive knowledge of the GRC landscape, one that understands diverse industries and consistently delivers innovations aligned with your unique risk and compliance requirements.

Here are a few considerations when evaluating a vendor's GRC expertise.

Practical Tool Design

GRC systems are complex and should accommodate a wide range of use cases that integrate across numerous departments. Because of this, the GRC solution must prioritize usability, enabling users of all skill levels to easily create workflows and dashboards that reflect real-time operations. If your only need is to manage internal audits, then you don’t need a sophisticated GRC tool. However, that one-point solution is rare. We find that most organizations need a holistic viewpoint of risk which requires a dynamic solution that not only integrates throughout the entirety of an organization but is also compatible with external applications and tools to aggregate data into one centralized database. LogicGate simplifies the complex and connects otherwise disjointed use cases to facilitate easy information collection and analysis, providing a comprehensive view for accurate reporting and measurement of an organization’s risk posture. The goal is to limit surprises—to do so you must take a holistic approach to GRC.

Additionally, every company sits differently on the maturity scale, so a one-size-fits-all approach to holistic GRC isn’t realistic. This is why we offer both pre-built applications with configurations and workflows aligned to best practices for a quick setup and fast time to value, as well as advanced customization capabilities to adapt to any environment. With this “Goldilocks” approach, LogicGate enables functional leaders across risk management, compliance, cyber, privacy, and audit to collaborate and report on contextual and accurate data built for their unique environments.

Your business will scale; select a platform that can scale with you.

Implementation and Support

Expertise isn’t only applicable to a specific solution or service; it’s important to have expertise in world-class customer support. The implementation process is vitally important to the future success of your program…and not every company gets it right. What happens if you change your requirements mid-onboarding? If you feel the platform is too complex after implementation, will you need to pay more for additional training? After implementation do you still engage with your vendor or do phone calls go unanswered…unless you amend your contract?  You want a GRC partner who is invested in your program and demonstrates that commitment through expert engagement, ongoing training, and education. Many GRC implementations fail when customers don't have an expert team guiding them through every step of the process to ensure a smooth implementation and ongoing consultation. LogicGate does not outsource implementation, which means we prioritize our partnership approach for implementation and beyond to ensure you are successful. We pride ourselves on being an extension of your team, not just your vendor. For instance, during ongoing engagements with industry analysts, we are often told our implementation process sets the standard of excellence. For 22 consistent quarters, LogicGate has been recognized as a GRC leader, highlighting that 98% of users were satisfied with our quality of support. We encourage you to read our customer reviews, where you’ll find sentiments such as: “The LogicGate procurement, implementation and now support process has been amazing. The support team is unbelievable,” — CIO, Automotive Industry.

Delivering Continuous Innovation

Complacency doesn’t exist in GRC. If you’re not growing and evolving, then your one-trick pony approach will be outperformed and outmatched. A modern and flexible GRC platform must be designed to evolve and scale, and a key differentiator for LogicGate is that our solution was built by expert GRC consultants who saw a gap in the industry. Find a need; fill a need. Their visionary approach has generated a proven track record of consistently delivering innovation to adapt to changing compliance landscapes, emerging risks, and technological advancements. Vendors lacking practitioner experience or real-world exposure may struggle to release essential features or adjust to shifting trends that impact you—the customer. It is crucial to evaluate how a GRC provider monitors industry trends, integrates new functionalities, and incorporates emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, or risk analytics into the platform. A GRC provider with proven consistency in releasing new features will help customers be more efficient, productive, and effective. Simply put, find a GRC partner that continuously innovates to make your life easier

Trust and Security

An established GRC provider offers robust security protocols and proven reliability, protecting customers from data breaches, system downtime, and performance issues with security expertise aligned to industry-leading standards such as SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. This ensures that the cloud-native infrastructure supports compliance, privacy, and robust disaster recovery. Equally important is the trust placed in the vendor's financial stability to maintain a long-term, committed solution and support.

You are sourcing a GRC partner because you need GRC expertise. Evaluate the platform’s user experience and scalability, the company’s suite of solutions, whether the organization just has strong point solutions or a holistic approach to managing and growing GRC programs, and other factors that are meaningful to you. And think about the people—who do you want to work with as an extension of your internal team?  Those considerations will help you find the expertise you need.

If this resonates with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out so we can learn more about you and your organization. I also encourage you to engage with LogicGate’s Risk Cloud platform to see if our expertise is right for you.

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