The benefits of a unified approach to governance, risk, and compliance are easy to see. Mid-size organizations can simplify compliance and reduce cybersecurity risks. Enterprises can use GRC data to improve decision-making for risk management, productivity, and profitability. How can you overcome GRC challenges and achieve excellent results cost-effectively?
The Most Common GRC Challenges for Enterprises
GRC integration doesn’t happen automatically or overnight, but it also doesn’t need to be as complex as some companies make it out to be.
1. Misconceptions About GRC
GRC stands for more than empty words. It’s not a term you throw around in investor meetings, a one-time project, or a temporary fix.
Making changes to governance, risk management, and compliance programs requires ongoing commitment but delivers long-term benefits. Centralizing operations with GRC is like investing in a healthy lifestyle instead of a fad diet.
2. Clear and Comprehensive Controls
Many enterprises overcomplicate GRC. An encyclopedia-sized book of company regulations, policies, and procedures makes consistent compliance more difficult.
Using too much technical language or legalese gets in the way. A good GRC program is like a blueprint that any worker can follow, from the head architect all the way down to individual bricklayers.
3. Compliance Efficiency
Companies that try to integrate GRC for the first time can run into efficiency problems. Complying with external regulations and internal standards seems to require endless hours of manual reviews, audits, and reports.
Contrary to what you may think, this isn’t an inherent problem of GRC frameworks. It’s a side effect of too much complexity (e.g., pointless or redundant requirements) in the system.
4. Agreement on Roles and Responsibilities
Some organizations run into issues because they repeatedly change who is in charge of GRC implementation. Like captains, GRC decision-makers often have unique perspectives and priorities, so replacing someone midway through the process can result in restarting work already done, not to mention frustrating team members.
5. Evolving Regulatory Requirements
Setting up a program that only takes current regulations into account can cause enormous headaches when those regulations change. To understand why this is a big deal, take a brief look at the evolution of PCI DSS:
- Version 1.0: 2004
- V. 1.2: 2008
- V. 2.0: 2010
- V. 3.0: 2013
- V. 3.2.1: 2018
- V. 4.0: 2024
Imagine the time and effort required for training, monitoring, and compliance if every version update required deep changes to company guidelines.
6. Cyber Risk Impacts
The importance of cybersecurity in enterprise risk management has increased massively. Recent surveys by audit firm PwC and consultant firm Gartner both found the same trend: Industry leaders are more concerned about cybersecurity risks (40% to 51%) than they are about regulatory compliance (38% to 40%).
Considering that ransomware can paralyze operations, it’s no wonder that enterprises are taking the threat seriously. Effective GRC requires IT leaders and executives to be on the same page.
7. Programs That Don’t Scale
Risk management and compliance processes that work for smaller teams often run into scaling problems for enterprise needs. Spreadsheets work for vendor management with a few hundred suppliers, but what happens when you need rapid decisions on supply chain risks for 1,000+ vendors? Manual GRC processes are incompatible in the long run for enterprise-level organizations.
8. Effective Risk Prioritization and Management
Which risks are the most critical for your organization to monitor and mitigate — supply-chain risks, insider threats, stock market losses, or product issues? Depending on who you ask in your company, the list may look very different. It’s hard to implement a GRC framework successfully if you can’t agree on risk priorities.
Common Issues With GRC Implementation
Aside from general issues in designing a compliance framework, many companies face GRC challenges in the implementation phase.
9. Integration With Current Processes and Systems
It pays to choose a GRC platform that integrates closely with your current enterprise software. This way, you reduce the work required to turn data into useful insights. Teams can keep using tools they’re familiar with and still improve management across your system’s infrastructure.
10. Resistance to Change
It’s harder than some companies expect to incentivize employee adoption of policies and programs. Workers often like to keep doing things the old way, even when it means wasting time.
11. Employee Compliance Management
In an organization with 500,000 workers, trying to manually review compliance and performance is practically impossible. But you also can’t afford to ignore compliance at the individual level. It only takes a few workers to cause major cybersecurity and regulatory failures.
12. Confusing Policies and Controls
Compliance violations don’t always mean that workers deliberately ignore company policies. Human error is more common. When workers don’t understand procedures or how to apply them in common situations, following through is difficult.
13. Internal Silos and Communication Problems
One of the biggest benefits of GRC — bringing together all risk and compliance management efforts under the same roof — is also one of its greatest challenges. Breaking down data silos requires an overhaul of how your company makes decisions, stores data, monitors objectives, and communicates risks. Strong leadership and cutting-edge technology are a must.
14. Data Integration and Utilization
Without careful planning, GRC metrics can complicate compliance instead of supporting it. Efficient GRC means tracking the right insights, sharing them with the right stakeholders, and using them to drive the right priorities.
15. International Regulatory Environments
In a recent survey by the World Economic Forum, more than 75% of CISOs said that juggling regulations across borders is one of the biggest challenges to compliance efforts. Enterprises that have clients in the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, and other markets may have to comply with dozens of different regulations for data privacy, financial reporting, cybersecurity, and employee safety.
Tips for Overcoming GRC Challenges in Your Organization
Many common GRC challenges stem from companies not correctly customizing the framework to their organization. GRC must adapt to your objectives, not vice versa.
Highlight the Benefits of GRC in Terms Your Audience Understands
To make your GRC program work, stakeholders need to be on board. If your organization seems halfhearted in its compliance efforts, thinking in terms of benefits has the power to motivate. Here’s how to get buy-in from different groups:
- C-suite: Show the financial advantages of minimizing the risks of data breaches, ransomware attacks, lawsuits, and regulatory failures.
- Department heads: Show how GRC fundamentals line up with what teams want anyway, such as improved communication and reduced confusion.
- Workers: Don’t just tell employees what to do. Show why and how risk and cybersecurity best practices matter for user safety and company security.
To find out what different groups care about, you need to get stakeholder feedback. The best GRC frameworks aren’t top-down or bottom-up. They’re both.
Develop Standardized Definitions and Processes
Standardized practices simplify and streamline risk and compliance efforts. Standardization also helps you scale your program and make regulatory changes with minimal disruptions.
Do your policies and processes have well-defined terms, objectives, and controls? Be specific, never vague.
Use Compliance Software
Modern technology makes life so much easier for enterprise GRC. Compliance automation and analytics platforms like Compyl can improve organization-wide GRC efforts massively:
- Gathering the insights you prioritize
- Making actionable data accessible to stakeholders
- Mapping overlapping controls from different regulatory frameworks
- Streamlining and automating workflows
- Organizing and tracking vendor risks
- Monitoring employee adoption and compliance progress
From CISOs to compliance committees, various groups can access centralized reporting to enhance risk management. What would take hours manually is available at a glance.
Create a GRC Culture, Not a Massive Rulebook
At the employee level, compliance management is more effective when it comes naturally instead of requiring constant monitoring. Resist the tendency to over-regulate.
Frameworks like SOC 2 and PCI DSS are good examples of successful risk management. They follow strong core concepts and include some specific targets but also allow for significant flexibility on the ground.
Assign Specific Responsibilities and Clear Guidelines
When there are too many cooks in the kitchen, productivity and efficiency suffer. Like high-end restaurants with a chef and sous chef, your organization benefits when teams have an organized leadership structure and clear guidelines.
From HIPAA to GDPR, compliance efforts are more successful when you create and empower the right GRC roles. Detail what committee or individual sets the rules and what the process is for reviewing, suggesting, and implementing changes.
Automate Operations Securely
Compliance automation is a strength, not a security weakness. When you automate document workflows, you reduce opportunities for human error — and simplify the compliance process for employees. Following through on GRC objectives becomes easier.
Eliminate Chokepoints and Streamline Communications
Before settling on a finished structure for your GRC framework — ideally from the very beginning — perform an organizational assessment to identify areas that are slowing down your risk management and compliance efforts.
Are certain roles too overwhelmed with responsibilities to function optimally? Do communications lines get crossed during specific processes? Mapping your organization’s unique GRC challenges helps you create tailored solutions.
Scalable Solutions for GRC Challenges
Even organizations that already follow a risk and compliance framework can face new GRC challenges as global markets shift. That’s why technology-based GRC solutions are essential for modern enterprises. Compyl allows for rapid scaling, data-driven compliance programs, and seamless change management. Request a demo today.
