Initiatives for governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) rank among the top strategic imperatives for most enterprises. Many organizations are evaluating the current-state and future-state risks around whether these initiatives can properly handle rapidly changing global and local regulations. There’s no end in sight to the growing need for creating process transparency and managing exposure to risk.
GRC management solutions, which incorporate compliance software and risk management software, are designed to help organizations comply with current regulations, manage their risk, and facilitate required corporate disclosures. To be truly effective, these solutions must be an integral and cost-effective part of the everyday routine throughout an organization. Also crucial are accurate, thorough, and easily customizable reporting capabilities – for measuring risk and for demonstrating compliance.
We believe that efficiency, productivity, and automation must play central roles in any GRC initiative. With that in mind, our approach to long-term GRC management is founded on a set of five forward-looking principles:
- Maximize existing tools and investments
- Ensure efficiency and productivity
- Embed easy-to-use risk and compliance controls in everyday activities
- Foster a risk and compliance culture by focusing on the last-mile workflow
- Automate current and future-state blueprints
We apply these five principals in all of our GRC solutions. For example, in document and records compliance we help ease compliance burdens by integrating controls within the everyday Microsoft applications and tools that employees already know. In regulatory compliance and controls, we enable workflows and processes for new and existing regulations such as E-discovery, SOX, MiFID, NERC, PCI DSS, and more. Our analytics and reporting tools help users collect, compute, and report risk measures. In the event of an incident, our business continuity management capabilities help users access essential services via underlying unified communications technologies and collaborative workspaces, processes, and workflows. And to ensure information safety and privacy, our tools and technologies provide the necessary framework to maintain data and process integrity – and to comply with both national and international security privacy standards.
The rapid adoption of cloud and online services introduces new concerns around governance, risk mitigation, and data compliance. Microsoft is an industry leader in addressing these needs, applying its Trustworthy Computing Security Development Lifecycle methodology and Security and Privacy standards to the cloud environment. Other needs are addressed by certifications and third party SAS 70 Type II independent audits at data centers. And the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)-Federal offering in the U.S. enables government bodies to address specific industry needs around the governance, risk, and security of cloud services.
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Microsoft GRC Solution Benefits
- Maximizes existing IT investments and capabilities
- Requires little training, thanks to familiar Microsoft environment
- Boosts efficiency in everyday workflows and processes
- Enhances productivity in everyday compliance routines
- Embeds last-mile compliance workflow at the desktop level
- Integrates GRC into daily activities
- Promotes self-service (right information, right time, right format)
- Integrates easily with a rich ecosystem of Microsoft partner solutions
- Requires low total cost of ownership
- Deploys quickly and easily, enabling fast-track projects
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